Bad Girls' Playground
by sugarkid
Summary: Victor Frankenstein travels to an asylum as part of his studies at Ingolstadt, only to be given the most difficult and illusive patient in their care: Ruby. In a world of repressed desires, where women who speak out of turn are often deemed insane, what will happen when Victor falls for the woman he has sworn to fix? (Frankenwolf). Dedicated to Brideofrankenwhale on tumblr
1. Her Name Is Ruby

Miss Mayfair's School For Wayward Girls was well applauded across the country for its sensitive treatment of hysterical young ladies. It was regarded as the best place for recovery from such an illness, the saving grace for ladies who did not behave as they should or take their place in society as expected. Victor, who had no sisters to speak of and whose Mother had been dead for a very long time, only knew of it from references in conversation and medical journals, and had to admit that he felt rather insulted when his Professor revealed that that was where he was to be sent as part of his studies.

During the third year of study at Ingolstadt, all trainee Doctors were positioned in an establishment of their Professor's choosing, ranging from a general hospital to the medical tent of a warzone to a pharmacy on Fleet Street. Many factors were taken into account when making the decision, from how many places were available, to the individual's skills and the likelihood of success. Students both dreaded and anticipated the announcement, for more often than not the placement chosen for them was an accurate prediction of their future career prospects. Victor, whose talents lay in surgery and furthering technological developments, had hoped that his placement would be one of independent research, where he could put forward his own theories and analyse his findings for months at a time, only returning to Ingolstadt when he had come to something of a conclusion. The reality of the situation was rather different. In the end his name was put forward for the position of Physician in the School For Wayward Ladies, a placement that the Professor assured him was most enviable.

Victor would never forget the way Professor Jekyll pushed his glasses farther up his nose and poured him a glass of gin, the way he always did when he was feeling particularly tried, which seemed to be turning into something of a near constant state. Professor Jekyll leaned back in his chair and motioned for Victor to drink but he politely declined, knowing from experience that Jekyll was somewhat legendary for mixing up the labels on his bottles and drinking formaldehyde and all sorts of other clinical materials by mistake. If he was insulted by the gesture he did not say so and instead gulped down the contents of his own glass, letting out a hiss that could be interpreted as either pleasure or pain. Victor hoped it was the former.

"I know why you came here," said Jekyll, taking the gin bottle again and pouring more into the glass. "You want to know why I chose that placement for you."

"It's just…I rather hoped that I would have a more, ah, _prestigious_ position."

Jekyll laughed and took a sip of his gin.

"You know, when I was a young man in London, I said much the same thing. I wanted it all – fame, honour, _women_!"

He toasted his own old mantra.

"Alas," he said, hissing as the gin went down. "I became a Doctor without really understanding what London was really like…what _Doctors_ were really like. I wanted everything for nothing and flinched at the thought of getting my hands dirty. I became a Doctor without understanding what it meant, without understanding the challenge, and I was not fit for the title."

Something about those words chilled Victor to the bone.

"I could send you off on a research project, but where would the challenge be in that?" asked Jekyll. "Miss Mayfair's school is a unique opportunity to learn many trades all at once and will truly test your ability, though I would not put you up to the task if I did not feel you had a chance of success."

By then his Professor was on his third glass of gin and Victor knew better than to press him any further, instead rising to his feet and doffing his hat, wondering who he dreaded breaking the news to more: his father or his fiancée.

Victor had been engaged to Elizabeth Lavenza for as long as he could remember, at the behest of his long dead Mother. The family had taken her in as a foundling when Gerhardt had been little more than an infant, raising her with all of the manners required of a young lady. If anything, she took to her lessons a little too well, charming everyone with her singing and even seeming to gain the approval of Father, something so rarely given that even Victor doubted that he had it.

The day he returned to Geneva, she was walking in the garden with Gerhardt and admiring the winter roses. The pair were of an age and had always been close, whispering secrets in one another's ears even when the Lady of the house had been alive – a fact that delighted her. In the few short years before her death, nothing had brought her greater pleasure than dressing Victor up as a young Lordling and Gerhardt and Elizabeth in matching sets. They had always been such typical children and the best of friends from the very beginning, laughing over the simple things and weeping together after Mother's death. They seemed to turn to him in perfect unison, though Victor did not miss the way that while Gerhardt's grin widened at the sight of him, Elizabeth's slipped from her face entirely.

"Brother!" called Gerhardt, running up the frosty stairs, Elizabeth dawdling behind. "We did not know you were coming! We would have had a pot of tea made ready for your arrival."

"I just got back. Honestly, there's no need to fuss over me."

"Nonsense," Elizabeth had arrived and spoke just above a whisper. "I shall have the Moritz girl bring a tray into the tea room at once. Will you be joining us, Gerhardt?"

Gerhardt shook his head and laughed out loud at the pout he received in response.

"Don't look at me like that, Elizabeth! I've had tea with you every day for the past six months and Father will put me in skirts before long. I'm sure you have plenty to talk to your _fiancé_ about!"

Elizabeth glanced at Victor and slowly nodded.

"Yes. I… suppose so."

Victor offered his arm and she took it, her fingertips cold against the wool of his jacket. Just like that, they were alone, enclosed in a silence that had haunted them since childhood. Victor had been engaged to Elizabeth for as long as he could remember; that much was true. However, it was equally true that for as long as he could remember he had never known how to engage her in conversation. While they waited for the tea tray to arrive, Elizabeth asked about his studies in what he knew to be a rehearsed manner; never once asking any question she truly desired the answer to, or betraying her true emotions in any of her reactions. Instead she cradled her teacup from the moment Miss Moritz brought in the tray.

As Victor added a single sugar cube and a slice of lemon to his own cup, it occurred to him that it was probably the best time to bring up the placement, since Elizabeth seemed far too preoccupied with being polite to say what she truly thought.

"Professor Jekyll finally announced my work placement," he said. "I am to travel to Miss Mayfair's School For Wayward Girls, where I shall work as a Physician."

Elizabeth had been in the middle of lifting her cup to her lips when he uttered the name of the establishment, but the second he said the words, she hesitated before lowering it completely. It was a minor gesture, but a reaction nonetheless.

"I see," she said, but that was all, sipping her tea and falling into silence once again.

It was almost a relief when Father arrived, completely insulted by the prospect of his oldest son going to work at some 'blasted asylum' and in no mood for debating the benefits. His reaction was exactly as Victor had thought it would be, closing off the discussion almost entirely and retiring to his study to script a stern letter to Jekyll, intending to outline the possible consequences of what would happen if any son of his was sent to such an institution. Victor followed, leaving Elizabeth alone in the tea room, still sipping at her tea and watching the goings-on of a pair of caged songbirds kept to entertain guests.

"Father, you mustn't do this!" Victor protested, even as his Father collected his papers and inks. "This placement…if I do not complete it then Professor Jekyll says that I do not have what it takes to become a true Doctor!"

Lord Frankenstein let out a coarse laugh as he leaned over his desk to begin writing.

"_I_ am the one paying for this education, so _I_ shall be the judge of whether or not you are truly coming along as a Doctor!"

"But Father," Victor was clutching at straws. He was not sure why, especially when he considered that he himself had argued against the School at first, but the more his Father rallied against it, the more determined he became to make his mark there. "I want the _challenge_. Do you wish me to be known as Victor Frankenstein, the Doctor who took the easy way out?"

Father paused from writing.

"And how, exactly, is treating lunatics a challenge?!"

Victor knew he had backed himself into a corner. In the end that was the only feasible explanation for the completely ridiculous words that came out of his mouth.

"I…I intend to be known as the man who cured Hysteria!"

For a while his Lord Father sat and stared at him, a bewildered expression across his face and ink dripping from his pen to the paper, making an enormous blot in the centre.

"And just how do you intend to do it?" he asked, obviously under the impression that he actually had some sort of plan. Victor racked his brain for any lie that would at the very least _sound_ convincing.

"I plan to seek out one of the more problematic patients at the School, who has had the least success from ordinary treatments. I shall speak…with this woman…discover a little more about her, investigate and come to my own conclusions..."

Lord Frankenstein seemed to approve of the idea and leaned back in his chair, scratching his chin and grinning broadly at some imagined honour.

"We could call it the Frankenstein Conclusion," he said. "Of course the press will want to hear about this…"

Just like that, Victor's heart was in his mouth. He had planned to shadow the existing physicians and learn from them for a few weeks before learning how to treat individual patients by himself, not pick a crazy girl and pick her apart piece by terrible piece. There was a very good reason most Doctors avoided lunatic asylums and an even better one why there was no conclusive text on Hysteria; nobody understood it, only the terrible disruption it had on the female mind.

"I think we ought to leave the press out of it, at least for the time being…wouldn't want to cause more stress than necessary at Miss Mayfair's…" He protested. "And anyhow, I doubt they would let me close to any of the particularly troublesome patients so soon after my arrival. They would barely know me!"

Lord Frankenstein knitted his fingers together and rested his chin on the top, seeming to consider it for a short while before rising to his feet and turning to his study window.

"I suppose you do have a point. We would not want to disrupt the patients any more than is necessary to our cause," he said, glancing out of the window. "I shall make a generous donation to the School at once in exchange for their support in this venture."

It was probably for the best that his Father had his back to him, for the manner in which Victor flailed his arms above his head and grimaced would have revealed the truth of the situation in a rather problematic fashion. It was the second time that day that he had backed himself into a corner and he knew for a fact that now Father had started to talk money, things were as good as set in stone.

* * *

It was not long before Victor's bags were fully packed and he had a carriage ready to take him straight to the School. He had not been entirely sure what to pack, if he was quite honest, for Jekyll had been more than a little bit vague on the details. In the end he packed a light selection of books, both for reference and entertainment, as well as the ivory plated surgical implements that Father had gifted him upon receiving the news of his acceptance into Ingolstadt and a few spare sets of clothes. He presumed that there would be papers and inks on the premises and did not wish to weigh down his case any more than was necessary.

Father summoned a manservant to carry the case to the carriage while the family said their goodbyes. Father's was predictably short, a nod, a promise of a letter now and then and that expectant look that Victor knew to interpret as don't-let-me-down, whereas Gerhardt's was warm and extensive: a list of all of the things a man simply had to do for fun while in an asylum and tests he _had _to try out, as if he was the expert on such matters.

Elizabeth did not say goodbye. She did not say anything at all and turned her head to the side when he moved to kiss her goodbye.

"I shouldn't worry," said Gerhardt as he helped Victor into the carriage. "I expect she's just sad at having you gone again so soon."

He watched the three of them through the carriage window: Father ordering several manservants to grit the courtyard once again, Elizabeth reaching out for Gerhardt as if she was drowning, all while the latter waved, ignorant of the fact that he was the only one doing so.

Suddenly exhausted, Victor slipped off his hat and closed his eyes, meaning to doze for only a few minutes. When he woke, however, the snowflakes outside had turned to rain and, though the carriage windows were steamed up, he could tell that it was dark outside. He rubbed a little of the condensation away so that he might get a better look at his surroundings, hoping that he might spot a landmark or two from one of the towns, but that hope was dashed completely when he realised that they were not in any sort of urban location at all. As a matter of fact, they were in the midst of near endless countryside, with rolling hills and lakes on either side and if Victor was not so convinced that they were lost or he was to be the victim of some terrible deception, he might have admired the sight for a while longer. He took hold of the carriage window and slid it open, leaning out as far as he dared, the winter chill filling the void within a matter of seconds and causing him to shiver.

"My good sir," he called to the driver, "how long until we arrive at our destination?"

"Not be long sir," the driver hollered back. "D'you see that glow over the hills? That's the light from their windows."

Victor had not seen any light at all and glanced across at the landscape to see what on earth the man was talking about. He squinted and focussed his attentions on one patch of trees, followed by another and finally, when he was barely concentrating at all, he saw it. One area of woodland had a golden glow to it that could not be explained away as moonlight.

"Why would they hide such a thing away?" He called back and the driver laughed by way of response.

Miss Mayfair's School For Wayward Girls was a construction of enormous proportions and only when they were close enough that Victor could see the building's vast shape did he begin to wonder if his presence there was all a terrible mistake. It was about the same size as his own noble manor house, with what seemed to be an endless row upon row of windows, all lit by the same amber light. The premises were surrounded by cast iron gates with spikes on the top and were chained shut with several heavy-duty padlocks, the sort of thing people used to protect their most valuable treasures and Victor could not help but wonder what could possibly be inside that warranted such protection.

As he climbed down from the carriage and waited for the driver to fetch his bag, Victor watched the way the rain dribbled along the metal of the gates, using the rim of his hat to protect his face. Something about the place was rather more unnerving than he had thought it would be when he sat in Professor Jekyll's office and talked about prestige. It was large enough to house a small town, for one thing, and the gates creaked obnoxiously in the wind, causing the chains to rattle. The windows to the place had probably been lit to appear inviting, he told himself, yet he could not escape the idea that it gave the building the appearance of some strange, bright eyed creature that watched every move he made, ready to snap him up at any second into its iron jaws.

Perhaps his suspicions were not far wrong, for he had not been standing in front of the gates for a very long time when a man in a cheap black coat holding a lantern walked up the main path and leaned through one of the gaps in the gate. The lantern was on a staff and the stranger poked that through one of the gaps too, flooding Victor's face with an unbearable amount of light and causing him to squint.

"Good evening!" He said, to whoever it was on the other side of the gate.

"State yer business!"

Victor opened one eye, squeezing the other tightly shut against the glare of the lantern, and attempted to make out the stranger's face on the other side of the gate.

"I am Victor Frankenstein, from Ingolstadt University," he said. "I was under the impression that you would be expecting me."

If Victor had thought the place looked imposing while the gates were bolted shut, then that was nothing to the sight of the place once they were open. He tried not to look around at his surroundings or the heavy wooden doors waiting for him, instead passing his bag onto the gatekeeper, whose name he later learned was Igor.

He tried not to think too much about what could possibly be inside to warrant such precaution or that within a matter of seconds he was locked inside too.

* * *

After Victor's departure, Elizabeth and Gerhardt retired to the reception room. Elizabeth sat down at the piano, though played no tune in particular, happy instead to play jumbled notes of any particular design. Gerhardt watched her from his own chosen spot by the window, smiling to himself at the way her face would brighten when two or three notes would come together and make a tune quite by coincidence. She could play the piano beautifully, though was often too lazy to flick through the pages of her music books and pick out a piece to play. After several attempts at forming a tune, he rose to his feet and sat next to her on the piano stool. The second he did so, she fell silent and stopped playing, confirming his suspicions.

"You know," he said, playing a few random keys. "You've never been very good at disguising your anger. I think I preferred it when you used to bite."

"I am sure you would," said Elizabeth, playing a couple of notes to complement his own. "Though I suppose you are right about me being angry."

Gerhardt lifted one hand from the piano and rested it on top of one of hers.

"And what have I done to make you angry?"

Elizabeth dragged her hand from under his and dropped both into her lap, knitting her fingers together.

"What makes you so certain that it is something _you've_ done?"

"My darling, Elizabeth, I do believe you just avoided the question entirely."

She sighed deeply and smoothed her skirts before rising to her feet and walking towards the fireplace. When she first arrived in Geneva she had been used to warmer climes and was far more vulnerable to the coughs and colds of childhood than either of the two boys. It became something of a necessity to keep a fire burning in whichever room Elizabeth was in, a necessity that had become more of a habit as she grew older. She was no longer the pale little girl that spent most of her time tucked up in bed, nor was she the small, giggling thing that said once in a rasping voice that she missed flowers the most. Gerhardt had never been scolded half so much as on the day that he dug up half of the garden and emptied it into her room, but the look of happiness on her face was worth it and he had never been convinced that Mother was quite so angry about it as she let on.

They had changed so much since then, but one consistency remained in the fact that wherever Elizabeth was there was always a fire.

"Once Victor finishes his work at the asylum, it shall only be a matter of time until our wedding day," said Elizabeth, hugging her arms against herself for a little extra heat. "And my Lord Frankenstein sends a new letter each day to military bases across the land… Soon you will be enlisted and then this house shall be empty."

Gerhardt stood up from the stool and crossed the room until he was standing behind her, watching the way the flames seemed to dance.

"Well, after you marry _Victor_ you shall have to make absolutely certain that you give birth to a daughter," he said and she turned to face him, tears welling in her eyes and an expression of such absolute betrayal across her face that any outsider would have thought he had struck her. He realised that he had said the wrong thing.

"I'm sorry," he said. "That was…uncalled for."

"You say 'marry Victor' as if I am doing it to spite you," she said.

He leaned down as if to kiss her and for a second she almost leaned into the embrace, changing her mind at the last second and bowing her head. She left the room in silence, leaving Gerhardt standing alone in front of the fireplace, clenching and unclenching his fists.

* * *

Victor had never been inside an asylum before, but he _had_ been in plenty of hospitals and he had expected the interior to be much the same. It took him by surprise when he saw that it was built far more like a grand house than any sort of official medical premises, with tapestries on the walls depicting Greek goddesses in various states of undress and not a single medical implement to be seen. As he walked inside the entrance hall, his attentions were immediately taken by the immaculate stone floor and how there did not seem to be a single speck of dust on any of the furniture. There were a number of stuffed animal heads on the ceiling above them and as Victor followed his guide up the stairs to the 'Master's' room, he stared at them, somewhat determined to find a cobweb and rather disappointed when he did not.

Until only recently, he had not read very many accounts of insanity, but from what he had read he had come to the conclusion that the patients held very little regard for how tastefully decorated their surroundings were. What's more, he found it very difficult to believe that all of the establishment's patients were asleep at that hour and not out of bed. He had so many questions for Miss Mayfair or the 'Master' or whomever it was that he was being taken to see that he could barely keep track of all of them in his head.

_A candelabra? Does nobody think it dangerous? And why is this hall so silent? It seems like there is no one here._

The 'Master's' room was at the end of a dark corridor, decorated with paintings of quaint landscapes. Victor approached the door somewhat nervously and observed Igor's reluctance to place his dripping bag on the floor, even if it meant holding it somewhat awkwardly while he knocked on the door. Victor did not hear a sound from the other side of the door, yet knew that something must have been said, for a matter of seconds later Igor pushed open the door and motioned for him to step through.

He had imagined a study much like his Father's, filled with papers and maps and other such equipment that would come in most useful when running an institution such as Miss Mayfair's and in that he was not entirely disappointed. There _was _a desk inside and it was covered with paperwork, but the man sitting behind it was quite unlike anyone that Victor could have imagined. He was small and very thin, with a pointed face and the blackest eyes Victor had ever seen. He might have mistaken him for one of the patients at first, were it not for the silk shirt he was wearing and china tea cup he held to his lips with an exaggerated elegance. Standing just behind him was a pretty girl in a plain white frock, watching her Master's every move with such scrutiny that she did not seem to have noticed anybody else had entered the room.

"Master," said Igor, "Victor Frankenstein of Ingolstadt is here to see you."

The man sipping the tea did not rise from his chair to greet him, nor did he even seem to acknowledge the fact at first. Instead he finished sipping his tea and lowered his cup, turning to the girl with the teapot as he did so. She watched him, her eyes bright with hope.

"That's a good cup, Milah," said the Master, causing her to break out and smile. "_However_, I cannot help but notice that this tea was brewed for 30 seconds less than last time. Perhaps it would be better for 30 seconds more?"

His words were not said in a particularly cruel manner and Victor knew he had said far more scathing things in the past when Elizabeth placed more sugar cubes than was necessary in his cup, yet still it reduced the girl to tears. She fell to her knees and sobbed so violently that her entire body shook, mumbling words in between sobs that Victor could not decipher, but the strange little man seemed to know quite well.

"Don't worry, dearie," he said. "Our bargain has not changed."

That statement only made her howl louder.

"Igor, escort Miss Milah here to her room and ensure she comes to no harm," commanded the 'Master', causing Igor to drop his bag, lift the girl to her feet and all but drag her from the room. Victor could hear her sobs even after the door was closed and it haunted him for quite some time afterwards. The little man, on the other hand, did not seem to hear it at all and was in the middle of pouring himself another cup of tea.

"That's your first encounter with a mad girl, I take it?" he asked, only half conversationally. Victor stood and watched as he placed the teapot back on the desk and lifted the cup with his very fingertips. He motioned towards a comfortable looking parlour chair with his free hand and Victor cleared his throat awkwardly before moving to sit down.

"I, ah, yes," he said, trying not to think too much about the girl's sobs. His response seemed to amuse the 'Master' greatly, for he began to cackle.

"I thought as much," he said, setting down his teacup most delicately. "I am Count Rumple Von Stiltskin and your presence here is most welcome. There is no such thing as too many doctors in a place like this and you might even learn something!"

He laughed at his own joke, a strange giggle that was oddly unsettling and rifled through one of the numerous piles of paper that surrounded his desk.

"I received your Father's proposal," he said, pulling out a single letter that even from a distance Victor could recognise as his Father's. "Most ambitious for a man of your age. You have next to no experience with lunatics, yet you believe you can not only cure them, but one of the…what was the phrasing…" he leaned forward and squinted, "ah yes, _problematic patients_."

"Just what exactly are you saying?" asked Victor, who did not relish being insulted and, despite the man's peculiar mannerisms, he was fairly certain that that was the case. "That it can't be done?"

The Count sighed and leaned back, folding up the letter.

"My asylum is a business, Mr Frankenstein and people pay me to take care of their daughters. If a cure for Hysteria becomes widely available without the distress of an asylum, that leaves me more than a little bit out of pocket now, doesn't it?" he said. "That said, I am somewhat _curious_ about your proposition and I cannot deny that due to circumstances outside of my control, I find myself in need of man of your particular skills. Tell me, Mr Frankenstein, do you have much experience with newly born babes?"

Victor had never so much as held an infant and he was not entirely certain what the Count was trying to imply.

"I…am not certain of your motivations, Count," he said, prompting the strange little man to double up with laughter once again.

"Of course not, dearie, I have not made myself clear. Allow me to," he motioned with his hands, "spell things out. One of my girls is in a rather, ah, delicate condition and while I usually consider it advantageous that we are situated so far from the outside world, we are also miles away from any physician or midwife that might come to the poor girl's aid in her… desperate hour. It is not in my best interest to let her die, particularly since her Father is one of our most prolific sponsors."

Victor let that information sink in, wondering if he was more disgusted or fascinated by the man before him or some other strange emotion that had not yet been defined.

"And what of the child?" he asked, prompting a dismissive wave of the hand.

"The child is not my concern," said the Count. "I'll make you a deal. You help me in this and I shall allow you access to one of my other most challenging patients for the purpose of your research. She should prove most _interesting_ to say the least."

The Count's grin was wide and toothy and had all of the appearance of a demon's glare, which was fitting of the way Victor felt he was making some sort of unholy pact.

"Her name is Ruby."


	2. The Red Queen

Victor slept comfortably, oddly so, in the sort of way that made it difficult for him to believe he was in a mental asylum. After agreeing to the Count's terms, he was escorted to a room farther along the corridor by one of the seemingly innumerable guards that littered the place. His room was sizeable and adorned with baroque carvings that made such grotesque faces that one of the first things he did before climbing into bed was strip his walls and hide them under his bed. The Count's tastes left much to be desired, a fact further reinstated over breakfast the next morning.

The patients were given communal showers at six o'clock sharp, leaving the doctors a full hour or so to help themselves to breakfast and compare notes in the grand dining hall that no patient was ever allowed to enter. It was the first time that Victor had seen any member of staff besides the illusive Count, so he embraced the opportunity to make a good impression, dressing smartly and arriving early, scanning the face of every man to walk through the door.

Most of the men had more of a butcher's look to them than that of medical men, with thick arms and necks and more hair on their bodies than Victor had ever seen on any animal. He helped himself to a spot of tea and toast and watched uncomfortably as the Count read his morning mail, giggling with increasing volume as he finished each letter. Victor shuddered and applied butter to his toast, an action that seemed to bring him to the attentions of the red-headed man sitting beside him, who had spent most of the morning alternating between adjusting his glasses and sipping his tea.

"Archibald Hopper," said the stranger, reaching out a firm hand for Victor to shake. He had a kindly face, seemingly unhardened by his surroundings and Victor was filled with the overwhelming belief that he could trust him.

"Victor Frankenstein," he said and returned the gesture.

"Ah, then you must be the new man the Count mentioned," said Dr Hopper. "What brings you to Miss Mayfair's?"

The second he asked the question, the Count all but exploded with laughter at the other end of the table at some bill or another and the pair of them both shuddered into their cups.

"I am here as part of my Ingolstadt studies," said Victor when he was sufficiently recovered. "I mean to develop a cure for Hysteria and the Count has set me up with one of the patients here. Ruby, I do believe he called her."

At the mention of Ruby, it was Dr Hopper's turn to laugh out loud as if he had told some incredible joke. When he noticed that Victor was not laughing, his own laughter slowed.

"Ah," he said, putting his teacup to his lips and taking a very lengthy sip.

Victor could not help but wonder why the thought of someone curing this 'Ruby' character was such a funny idea to him, since the fact remained that he did not trust the Count. He knew he had asked for a difficult patient, but there was something about the way the Count had been so amused by his lack of experience with the insane that made him wonder just what he had let himself in for.

"Do you…believe it cannot be done?" he asked somewhat tentatively, before nibbling a slice of toast.

"My opinions on the matter are-are irrelevant," said Doctor, lowering his teacup. "However, Ruby's condition is quite severe. She does not believe herself to be ill."

Victor could not help but laugh at those words.

"No lunatic ever does," he said.

"Of course," said Dr Hopper patiently, as if he was explaining a difficult concept to a child. "But her conviction has a way of rubbing off on other people. She's not like m-most women, Dr Frankenstein. She has…a way of getting into your head. Since her arrival here three years ago, she has been under the care of eleven different men."

Victor felt somewhat conflicted about that revelation. On the one hand he was relieved that he had plenty of material to look through and draw his own conclusions, but on the other he had to admit that eleven doctors was rather a lot for one patient.

"_Eleven_? What happened to them?"

Dr Hopper did not answer. During that long silence, a cuckoo clock above the Count chimed seven o'clock and the room fell completely silent, as if by some unspoken rule. Victor wondered if he ought to ask about the significance of it, since even the Count was quiet, with a mean little smile across his face and the same single scone on his plate that had been there all morning. Victor turned to Dr Hopper, meaning to ask him what the significance of it all was, when two of the Count's guards walked into the room, a skinny girl in shackles only a little way behind. Victor recognised her as the girl with the teapot from his arrival and every hair on the back of his neck stood up on end at the sound of her shackles rustling against the floor. The guards escorted her to the head of the table, where the Count was sitting with his single, abandoned scone and there they left her, stepping out of the dining room momentarily and returning with an elaborate tea tray. The girl stood and watched, her eyes darting from the Count's wicked grin to the scone, licking her lips every so often.

Victor glanced from her to the tea tray, wondering if such a thing was customary in an asylum or if it was some rule that he did not yet know. The tea tray was far more ornate than anything he would have expected: bone china, with painted birds on the surface. The Count did not seem too impressed by this, though, and instead turned to the girl.

"Now then, Miss Milah, it's time for tea," he said, giggling and pointing to the tea set. "Don't forget our bargain, dearie."

It was the second time Victor had heard him make mention of a bargain to the girl and he took in the faces of everyone around him as she began to make the tea, hoping for something of an explanation but finding nothing. The other men ate breakfast as if they saw and heard nothing. The girl's shackles rattled against the china and when she lifted the finished cup, her hands shook, perhaps out of nervousness or anticipation. The Count took the cup by his very fingertips and held it at a distance to examine it as if it was something far more exotic than a mere cup of tea.

"Ah, yes, Milah," he said. "I see you took my advice and brewed this cup for 30 seconds more than last time? It's a good cup, but I feel that perhaps 30 seconds less was better."

Just as upon his arrival, the guards escorted the girl from the room, leaving the tea tray behind. After she had been gone for a while, the men began to speak again and the Count gobbled up his scone as if nothing at all noteworthy had happened.

* * *

The snow outside of the tea room was melting. Elizabeth watched the way it lingered on every tree branch before finally dripping to the floor, remembering the first ever family portrait she had ever been included in. The entire family had dressed in their finest clothes with not a single hair out of place and spent a great deal of time posing and preening for the photographer. He stood them at the bottom of the stone steps that led to the garden and warned them to stay absolutely still, for he could not paint out any errors. They had all stayed absolutely still, up until the crucial moment when the photographer went to take the photograph and a particularly icy drop of water landed on Gerhardt's head. Lady Frankenstein had demanded that the final photograph was framed, for it amused her greatly.

"What better portrait of our family than this?" she had asked.

Elizabeth supposed she had a point. Victor stood in front his Father and the pair of them were perfectly posed and stern. Gerhardt stood next to Victor, his eyes bulging open with shock and his jaw wide open from the gasp he had uttered. Elizabeth stood next to him and had turned her head away from the camera completely to see what on earth was the matter with Gerhardt; the expression of bewilderment still slightly visible. Lady Frankenstein had one hand on each of their shoulders and was smiling down at them both. Lord Frankenstein adhered to her wishes while she was alive, but after her death it was only a matter of time before that silly photograph was replaced with a far more serious portrait. The replacement photograph showed Lord Frankenstein and his by then grown up sons, with Elizabeth sitting on a chair in front of them, turning a little to the side so that her engagement ring was clearly on display.

_Elizabeth?_

Elizabeth's Father had been a very rich man, leaving her with the equivalent of a goldmine in assets. The ring was her Mother's and the purest demonstration of her Father's wealth, for he had had it inlaid with an enormous ruby and several smaller diamonds. It was a heavy ring in more ways than one and Lord Frankenstein ensured that it was visible in all official portraits, for it represented the impressive dowry and estates that came with it.

"Miss Elizabeth?"

Elizabeth blinked, only to realise that she was the centre of attention.

Lady Frankenstein's death had caused something of a ripple in the social hemisphere, since she was rather well liked among nobility, which ranged from letters from various important houses extending their grief to offers of marital pacts. One of the rather more unfortunate side effects was the near constant presence of Major Burns and his family in the Frankenstein home. Elizabeth found the Major himself quite charming, but as the only woman in the house she was left with the exhilarating job of entertaining his wife and three daughters while the men discussed politics in the smoking room. Lady Burns and her daughters were not particularly offensive, but Elizabeth could not help but wonder why they bothered to accompany the Major to Geneva. The second a cup of tea was put in front of them they would gossip if they had never met and it was difficult to get a word in edgeways, so usually Elizabeth did not bother to try, instead feigning an interest in families she had never heard of and fashions she did not understand.

She could not pinpoint exactly whereabouts in the conversation she had stopped listening and directed her attentions to the tea room window, so she could not even pretend to have been considering something that had been said.

"I do apologise," she said. "I was just thinking about Victor."

It was a convincing enough lie, for Lady Burns smiled most sympathetically, quickly mirrored by all three of her daughters. It was an eerie thing to look at, for all of the Burns girls resembled her to the point where all four of them appeared to be the same person with the sole variation of different hair.

"Understandable, ma bichette. You must be terribly worried," she said. "For a man of his stature to be expected to wallow amongst such vulgar animals as part of his studies, why, it is truly preposterous!"

She shuddered and soon all of her daughters did the same.

"It cannot be easy on you," she said, reaching across the table and taking her hands. "Still, you have the young Master Gerhardt to take care of you and that is no small thing….though I hear he means to join the war effort?"

Elizabeth was still angry with Gerhardt and had not said a word to him since Victor's departure. They had passed one another in the corridors of the house and Gerhardt had attempted to engage her in conversation, perhaps hoping to lead her into a proper apology, but Elizabeth knew better than to take the bait. Instead she exchanged a few meagre pleasantries before carrying on her usual business. If she forgave him then they would be exactly as they were before and she did not trust herself with the weight of that responsibility. Her blushing girlhood days were almost over and she needed to make the transition as a bride of unquestionable virtue or chance the punishment.

She did not wish to think about the punishment.

"Yes, it is something he has dreamed of since boyhood," she said. "I am sure you know how it goes, my Lady."

Lady Burns let go of her hands and picked up her tea.

"Ah, yes, war is a fickle mistress," she said. "Has he any idea which regiment he is to join?"

Elizabeth noticed the way that Gerhardt's name had caused Lady Burns' daughters to blush most ferociously. He had that effect on girls who did not know him well.

And, that is to say, some who _did_.

"Unfortunately there is no regiment yet," she said. "My Lord Frankenstein is in the process of sending letters to families across the continent."

Lady Burns gasped and glanced around the table at her daughters, who quickly copied. Elizabeth sipped her tea so that she could roll her eyes somewhat discreetly.

"But that will never do! My Lord Husband still has many connections, you know, he could have him in a commanding position within a matter of days!"

Elizabeth did not relish the thought of owing Lady Burns a favour, for the woman had something of a bad habit of introducing people in conversation by what good turn she had done for them. That and the way she slipped the odd French phrase into conversation to remind everybody that she was of Parisian descent. Elizabeth did not wish to be 'Lady Frankenstein, whose brother in law is most well regarded on the battlefield because of our family, mais oui'.

"That is generous of you, Lady Burns, but I fear we do not have anything of equal value to offer you in exchange," she said, causing Lady Burns to smile in such a crooked way that she wished she had not said anything at all.

"Perhaps you have more than you think," said Lady Burns, the strange smile never leaving her face. "I have long been meaning to tell my Lord husband to recommend a marital pact between our two families; considering how close we have become over the past few years and our mutual financial strength, it seems to me that it is the logical next step, wouldn't you agree?"

Elizabeth was not sure whether to laugh or cry, for from an outsider's perspective it certainly _was_ logical. The Burns family were well known and extremely wealthy and that was without taking into account Lady Burns' offer of a favour in exchange. Elizabeth knew that an ordinary future lady of the house would not hesitate at such an offer and any indecision on her part would only cause people to suspect she had ulterior motives for keeping an unmarried Gerhardt in the house with her.

"An easy decision, oui? Gerhardt is able to serve in war as _he_ has always wished and the Frankenstein family acquires a sizable portion of our fortune and our contacts, which is sure to be in _your_ best interests," said Lady Burns. "One of _my_ daughters gains an honourable husband. See, Miss Lavenza? Everyone gets what they want."

Until that point Elizabeth had not known that it was possible for a single statement to be both absolutely correct and yet, at the same time, so hopelessly wrong.

* * *

By the time it was a little after half past eight, most of the men had drifted out of the dining hall, Dr Hopper among them. Victor was not entirely sure where he was expected to go or which man to shadow and Dr Hopper offered to direct him to Ruby's cell.

"It's no trouble," he said. "My patient is not far from there."

So it was that Victor left the dining hall with a fluttering sensation in his gut, uncomfortably aware that all he had to prepare himself was some paper and a pencil that he had found in one of the drawers of his bedroom. He had not had time to study the patient's case notes as he had been taught in Ingolstadt, but he told himself that the first session would be more of an introduction than anything else and therefore that sort of thing did not matter.

Dr Hopper took him up a flight of stairs and pulled a key from his pocket to unlock the door.

"You never forget your first asylum," he said as he pushed it open and for a moment Victor wondered what he meant.

He had presumed that the entire building would be decorated in the same fashion as the rooms he had already seen, so the truth was something of a shock. When he stepped through the door after Dr Hopper, it was as if he was stepping into a different building entirely.

The first thing to strike his attention was how the walls had not been papered, leaving the red bricks almost entirely exposed and giving the corridor a strange, unearthly coldness to it. The brickwork was interrupted every few paces to make room for a steel door and Victor quickly noticed that each door had a number on, but no other indication of what could be inside. Dr Hopper did not glance around at his surroundings, nor did he describe what anything was, so Victor was left to come to his own conclusions. When they passed a small alcove, Dr Hopper did not stop to look at what was inside, but Victor did and was most enthused to find what appeared to be a sculpture of the fresco of Dionysus sitting on his throne in Pompeii. The throne was made out of ordinary wood, with leather fastenings and the carved figure propped upon it appeared to have been carved by a master sculptor, for it retained the mottled appearance of real skin. Chained to the ceiling next to the throne (Victor presumed in place of the Sphinx) was a carving of a naked girl, ribs exposed. The realism of the piece was a marvel and Victor reached out to touch the carving of Dionysus. He was certain his Father would be impressed by such workmanship.

He did not expect the carving to open its eyes and scream, causing the girl hanging from the ceiling to stir, lifting her head and staring right at him. Someone grabbed hold of his arm and Victor turned to see who, horrified at the idea of being surrounded, just to see Dr Hopper standing there.

"This way," he said, leading him back into the redbrick corridor, which had started to resonate with the sound of screams and strange thudding noises from the opposite side of each metal door they passed.

They stopped in front of a door labelled 405, by which point the corridors had fallen into an eerie sort of silence once again. Victor had not realised until then just how his heart raced and he stared at his shoes for a while, leaning against the wall and breathing in a haggard fashion quite unbefitting of his noble caste. He dreaded to think what Elizabeth or Gerhardt would have said if they saw him in such a state and he rubbed one hand against his chest, attempting to pull himself together.

"Why…" he said, meaning to ask for the context of it all, but only managing to form a single word. Dr Hopper's face was hard to read, even as he examined his key ring for the one that would fit the door in front of them, and Victor wondered if it was deliberately so.

"Those were patients," he said, settling on a key and fitting it into the lock. "Not all of the doctors here abide by the same…code."

He turned the key and reached for the door handle and Victor took a deep breath. He did not know if the two he had just seen were considered particularly difficult, only that they were patients and there was every chance that what waited for him on the other side was several times worse. He shuddered as Dr Hopper opened the door and motioned for him to enter, hesitating for a few seconds more than he meant to.

The room was dark and at first he could not see what lurked inside, which only made him more nervous. All was still and deadly silent, as if there was nothing alive in the room at all. As the light from the corridor flooded inside, he became better able to distinguish the objects inside. There was a single bed on the floor, which remained vacant, for its owner was chained to the wall beside it. She clutched her knees to her chest but did not shiver or scream, instead turning to look at who had come to visit her as if it amused her greatly. Victor supposed that after eleven different doctors, it was not terribly presumptuous to think that was probably the case. She turned to him and smiled, climbing onto her hands and knees and crawling as far as her chains would allow.

"My," she said, her stare sending shivers down his spine and his insides to water. "What big eyes you have."

Heaven.

He had not expected her to be so beautiful.

* * *

The screams of the inmates caused a stir among all of the other patients. That was the way it always was on the occasions they were prodded or poked. The disturbance rippled throughout the corridors, through every floor and each nook and cranny, causing even the mice to turn tail and flee from the racket.

At the end of the third floor corridor, there was a single door with many more locks and chains than the rest and '306' painted on it in large, black lettering. It was usually guarded by a widow from the village, who divided up her time between knitting gloves and scarves for the patients and sleeping in the chair. That morning, she was fast asleep, with her head rolling over onto her shoulder and her knitting seemingly abandoned.

She had been sleeping like that for quite some time and it was clear that it would take some incredible commotion to rouse her, though in the end, the thing that made her jumpstart awake was not the disturbance in the cells or the angry voices of the guardsmen attempting to restore order.

It was the sound of fingernails on the door behind her.

The widow turned and stared at the door to cell 306, her eyes wide with terror and gripping a single knitting needle.

"Are you alright, Miss?" she asked, hoping her voice did not tremble.

_He's late._

The widow knew what was coming. She knew patient 306 better than her own grandchildren, which was part of the reason she was so terribly afraid. It was not for nothing that there were so many locks on the door, nor a coincidence that the other patients on that floor were marginally better behaved than ones on other floors, who didn't have to worry about being tossed into cell 306 for the night.

Sure enough, patient 306 began to speak in the girlish voice that made grown men quake in their boots.

"Is it time for tea?"


	3. When The Wolfbane Blooms

Miss Mayfair's School For Wayward Girls had two different sorts of patients, a direct result of its origins as a sort of retreat for noble women. It was originally created as a matter of convenience: a place where noble families could drop off their bothersome daughters and marvel at the handsome surroundings, returning home with a song in their heart. Those girls still remained, the 'curable' girls, who spent their days singing in the choir, painting the likeness of a flower they had picked from the garden or writing letters to their families in the shade. The 'curable' patients quickly learned not to talk to or familiarise themselves with the 'incurable' girls, for it was a common belief that if they were on their best behaviour the Count would let them go home.

Each morning after breakfast, the redheaded girl would walk to the bottom of the flowerbeds and make daisy chains, positioning herself so close by the gates that she would know immediately if anyone approached, but far enough away that she was not moved on by the gatekeepers. It was a delicate art, but one she had perfected well over the months. If ever a carriage was to come through the trees that surrounded the place, she knew within seconds and would watch with the intensity of a hawk.

The day the rains stopped, the grass was soggy underfoot and soaked her slippers through; she wrinkled up her nose in disgust at the way it felt as she wriggled each toe, her fingers covered in second-hand water from the few saturated flowers she had picked. Despite her good behaviour, she was not permitted a hat pin to pierce the stems and was forced to bite them instead, which proved to be clumsy work. More often than not she found the perfect flower, only to split the stem entirely in two with her teeth, leaving her no choice but to cast it aside. Her pile of abandoned, broken flowers grew larger every day, while she noticed that her completed daisy chains grew shorter. As she tossed the latest flower aside, the school clock chimed nine and she turned her attentions to the trees on the other side of the bars. By the eighth chime, a woman was visible, emerging from the trees. She appeared to be in her early forties and dressed in rags, with various rusty pots and pans tied to her body, which collided with one another with each laboured step she took.

The rag and bone woman visited Miss Mayfair's every morning at precisely nine o'clock come rain, snow or hail, offering strange wares that the other girls claimed she pilfered from the side of the road. They turned their noses up at the sight of her and pretended she wasn't there, but the redhead was fascinated by her and the objects she carried in her innumerable pockets. She told herself that one day she would have more than just toxic mushrooms and mummified shrews, but a key to the iron gates.

When the woman realised she was watching, which was quite a feat, considering her eyelids were stitched together, she grinned and shoved one of her gnarled hands into a basket she carried.

"A gift for you, beautiful child," she said, pulling out a dirty package and proceeding to slip it through the asylum bars.

The second the girl touched it, it squirmed and began to mewl and despite herself she took hold of one corner of the greasy fabric. The thing inside was small and furry, with oddly contorted limbs and-

-someone took her by the shoulder, causing her to all but jump out of her skin. She turned to see who it was, her heart beating a tattoo against her ribs, only to breathe a sigh of relief when she took in the kind face of Dr Hopper.

"Good morning, Miss Waters," he said, then, when he saw the look of abject horror across her face, "are you alright?"

_I…_

She glanced down at the squirming parcel, which still whimpered at the ghost of her touch.

_I'm not sure._

Dr Hopper had been in charge of the girl's treatment since her arrival at Miss Mayfair's. She counted her blessings on that front, for he was rather different to the other doctors. He did not use the brutish methods that some of the girls whispered about before bed and he even went so far as to apologise if ever any of his questions about her recovery could be constituted as offensive. If ever a patient was particularly upset, he would go out of his way to comfort them and calm them down or if a doctor struggled in any way with the complicated treatment process, then he was only too happy to help them. Similarly, he was always delayed to their sessions because of one doctor or patient in need of his help, so much so that even if he still apologised the girl did not bother to look angry. He was a true gentleman and the girl knew only too well that they were something of a rarity.

Even Dr Hopper's dismissal of the rag and bone woman was overly polite, bordering on apologetic in tone. If the woman had had eyes then she would probably have observed him with surprise as she turned to leave, her pots and pans glimmering on the odd occasion that sunlight hit a clean spot. The redheaded girl watched her go, keeping a close eye on the way she dodged each puddle.

A carriage was approaching, she saw, off in the distance with the insignia of the town. Perhaps it was hers, perhaps it was her time. She tried to make out the face of the driver, but Dr Hopper crouched down beside her and she lost all concentration.

"Now, let's take a look at this," he said, as if it were something no more serious than a grazed knee. He pulled back the cloth, just as the girl had done, only to grimace at the thing curled up inside.

The creature inside was a small, tabby cat and what fur it had grew in golden patches across its body. Its lack of fur made its limbs appear malformed and, when it lifted its head to look at the pair of them with curious amber eyes, it mewled from a misshapen jaw. Its lips curled back against its teeth, giving it the appearance of a near constant grin.

"What a poor creature," said Dr Hopper, covering it up with the sheet once again. "Pay it no mind, Melissa."

The second he spoke, the asylum gates opened and a gentleman walked up the path. The girl knew him by sight, much like all of the other girls in the place. He had achieved a strange sort of notoriety in the asylum, meaning that even if it was not necessarily positive, anyone could be called upon for an opinion of him. Dr Jefferson was the man most of the other 'curable' girls whispered about over their reading, blood rushing to their cheeks as they broke out in giggles. All of them had asked to be put under his care at least once, only to be swiftly refused without so much as an explanation or direct acknowledgement of the event from the man himself. Even as he walked up the garden path, several of the other patients asked what he thought of the dress they had on or handed him a sketch they had produced, scanning his face for any sign of approval.

His angular jaw and expensive clothes were the reason all of the girls giggled about him and developed increasingly complicated theories about why he had ignored them. The reason he was so well regarded in Miss Mayfair's, however, and the reason he had the freedom to leave whenever he wanted was because he was the only man in the establishment who dared to treat patient 306.

That morning he was dressed in a velvet overcoat and embellished top hat that left most of his face in shade. When he saw the girl and Dr Hopper crouching in the grass, he walked over to see what the pair were doing, leaving a crowd of envious girls watching his every move.

"It must get very boring for you, Archie," he said, slipping off his hat when he was in earshot, "having conversations with mutes."

Of course Dr Hopper was incredibly offended on her behalf.

"Miss Waters is not mute," he protested. "Sh-she is the victim of a psychological trauma."

"Of course, of course. Now what's this?"

The girl pouted as he knelt down beside them to take a look at the package, willing him to leave.

"Ah, nothing of concern," said Dr Hopper. "Just some-"

"Gracious!" cried out Jefferson, lifting the mangled cat into his arms. Initially it squirmed at his touch, before arching its back and rubbing its blind face against his coat, purring loudly.

"The rag and bone woman left it here," said Dr Hopper. "Perhaps it would be prudent to end the poor thing's misery."

Both the girl and Jefferson's reactions were the same; they glanced at him wide-eyed, as if horrified that he could even consider such a thing, all while the girl took hold of his wrist and shook her head and Jefferson cradled the mutilated animal against his body as if in some vain attempt to protect it.

"What use do we have for it? It's hardly going to be a mouser and the other cats…well."

Jefferson ran a gloved hand along the animal's back, as if he had not heard anything.

"I'm sure Alice will find a use for it," he said. "She does not have many playmates these days."

He mentioned patient 306 so casually, as she was somebody he had met at a dinner party under mundane circumstances rather than a patient. The girl had never met patient 306, of course, so it was just as likely she _was_ completely ordinary and the rumours that surrounded her were fictional. It was difficult to believe she was a terrifying beast capable of tearing a man to shreds after witnessing Jefferson walking around the school in one piece, devoid of bruises and dressed so immaculately.

"I-I don't think that's a good idea," protested Dr Hopper. "Patient 306 is-well…"

Dr Jefferson rose to his feet and grinned.

"A victim of psychological trauma," he said, doffing his hat by way of dismissal and retreating across the courtyard towards the school building. Dr Hopper watched him leave, all while shaking his head in a most disapproving fashion. As Dr Jefferson stepped through the front doors, he placed a firm hand on her shoulder and told her it would be alright.

"Why don't you come inside and play the harpsichord?" he suggested, all smiles. "It's been so long since I last heard you play."

She kissed him on the cheek and passed him her half-finished daisy chain, which he slipped inside his notebook. Contrary to what he thought, she was not frightened about patient 306. She knew better than anyone that Dr Hopper was not always right about his patients, since he was far from correct in his presumptions about her.

He thought she was a 'curable' girl by the name of Melissa Waters, rendered speechless by something she had seen, but he was wrong. Her name was Melusina and she could talk perfectly well.

Perhaps one day she would sing to him.

* * *

Count Von Stiltskin's study was one of the only rooms in the place to retain the magnificent view it had had as a stately home decades beforehand, a fact he was most pleased with. Even though the resident doctors all had windows in their rooms, all of them faced out onto the pastures at the back of the premises, which was a far less pleasant view. It seemed agreeable enough at first, of course, and no doctor had ever signalled a problem with their lodgings but the Count knew that their silence on the matter said more than a dozen words ever could. The view from the back of the building showed off a seemingly endless stretch of green pastures, though upon further inspection it quickly became apparent that was not as it appeared. Within a few months, all doctors in the establishment realised that the lovely view from their window actually looked down upon the unmarked graves of fatally wounded patients.

The Count liked to watch the way his investments arranged themselves in the courtyard. They were quite predictable from a distance, like sheep in the fold, and from his position by the window he was able to watch every single movement they made. He knew each of them by name and affliction, but only when he saw them in the courtyard did he feel as if he truly knew them.

He watched the rag and bone woman's actions with a certain degree of interest, too, before turning away from the window and stepping over to the enormous cabinet on the other side of the room. It was much taller than he was, with so many gold embossed carvings littering its woodwork that he had always thought the only feasible explanation for its presence in his study was vanity on the part of its original owner. Its handles were made of brass and in the shape of a fleur-de-lis, which along with the weight of the doors themselves made it quite difficult to reveal the contents within. However, the Count was hardly the sort of man to let such a thing stand in his way and, after putting all of his weight into the action, the doors gave way.

The Count could not remember what it had been used for when he took control of the school, only that he had taken one look at it and decided there and then that it would make a magnificent trophy cabinet. Many things had changed since that moment and circumstances had prompted a change of mind about certain matters, but he had stood his ground on the cabinet and never once regretted it. He would check his trophy cabinet several times a day and admire his treasures, sometimes losing himself completely in a state of wonder or taking extra time to polish the glass jars.

The Count knew that his treasures were not the same as most people's. The girls who walked through his door had favourite books, photographs of their family and rings from their mothers, but not he. His treasures were all of the pickled variety, with increasingly bloody stories behind them. Two of his jars contained the feet of a pair of girls who attempted to escape the place after midnight. The third in their trio was quite successful, but nevertheless the Count set aside a jar for her feet on the off chance he saw her again. Another of his jars contained the tongue of a girl who was sentenced to a lobotomy, but instead captivated the man scheduled to escort her to the operating table with stories of other lands. She ended each story with the promise of another and another, until she had been living in the school for many months.

The pride of his collection, however, was the jar containing a pair of eyes. He lifted that jar into his arms and stepped back over the window, where he could see the rag and bone woman hobbling back into the trees. Before she disappeared into the trees, she turned and glanced in his general direction, the wind whipping through her bright copper hair and revealing the crude stitches on her eyelids.

The Count giggled and tapped the jar in his hands.

* * *

Since Victor had not read through any of the notes pertaining to his new patient, he had to start from the very beginning and ask all of the questions that had probably been asked many times before.

"Could you tell me your full name?"

His question made her laugh out loud.

"They didn't even bother to tell you?" she asked. "Wonders never cease."

Despite the arranged marriage that had rendered most social engagements a waste of time for him, Father still insisted that all four of them travelled across the continent and mingled with other members of their class until they knew names and faces by heart. He had overheard stories of loons from friends of the family, who had paid a penny or two to the proprietors in exchange for a chance to poke the patients and gasp when they reacted. Their descriptions had always been the same, of shaved heads, loud voices and vacant stares; the polar opposite of the dark-haired woman in front of him, who sat in silence and seemed to see everything.

She caught his eye and immediately he flushed a bright red, as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn't, which seemed to amuse her greatly. Her smile was almost intrusive and Victor readjusted his position on the chair he had been assigned before clearing his throat and glancing down at his papers again.

"Your name, Miss?"

Victor remembered the first time his Father ever took him out hunting on their lands when he was still only a boy of seven. After a long day's effort, the hunting team remained empty-handed and Father's response was to cuff him around the ear for making too much noise. As he sat and sobbed in the snow-tipped undergrowth, wishing with everything he had that he could be anywhere else, the hounds caught a fox's scent and the men hurried off in that direction. His Father's response to the matter was the same as it always was – to demand that if he truly was to be the Lord and Master of all of the lands that surrounded him then he should stop bawling like a maid and join the hunt.

In the end they left without him and, by some strange twist of fate, the vixen they hunted crept out of the trees a few moments later; a splash of vibrant red against the dull monochrome of his surroundings. Victor never forgot the way the creature approached him and sniffed at his coat as if it had no reason to be afraid. Its eyes were sharp and curious and Victor hardly dared to breathe, lest it run away again. It occurred to him as he regarded the animal's scarred face and torn ears that perhaps he was the one who should have been afraid.

He could not help but think that there was something awfully wild about the girl chained to the wall in front of him, too, right down to the way she grinned wickedly at his question.

"Ruby," she said, much to his chagrin.

"Your _full_ name, Miss."

Her lips were blistered and she slid her tongue along them; a casual enough action, but it sent shivers up Victor's spine.

"You first."

Not for the first time since arriving at Miss Mayfair's, Victor was caught off guard. He was sure that the first thing he had done upon stepping inside her cell was introduce himself and explain the purpose for his visit, though the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if that was so. He had gone to a great deal of trouble getting a chair just so he could divert his attentions away from the woman inside for a short while and most of his scribbles from the moment he first sat down were vague observations about her height and vigour, in a shabby scrawl that he attributed to the way in which his hands all but refused to stop shaking from the moment he sat down and felt her eyes on him.

"I do apologise," he said, noting down that at the very least she seemed to have a grasp of common manners. "I am Dr Victor Frankenstein and I am here on behalf of-"

"_Victor_ will do."

Just like that, he scribbled it out.

"You may call me Dr Frankenstein," he said, in the most authoritarian tone he had at his disposal, which in truth was an imitation of a drunken Dr Jekyll that he usually used to make Gerhardt laugh.

"I understand," said Ruby, pausing for effect before muttering, "Victor."

He chose not to comment on her obvious attempts at toying with him, instead clearing his throat and writing 'requires discipline' underneath his previous notation. She shifted positions, her shackles hitting one another as she did so. At first the noise had seemed deafening and Victor had flinched every time she so much as turned her head, though as time went on he had learned to anticipate it.

He supposed it did not matter much if she did not tell him her full name, for there was plenty of documentation on the subject and at least one of her previous doctors must have managed to discover it.

"Alright," he said, writing a reminder to himself to ask Dr Hopper where those records were kept. "I am here to help you get better; such is my responsibility as a man of science. Won't you tell me the circumstances that brought you to Miss Mayfair's?"

In truth, he did not expect her to answer him. What he expected was for her to laugh and make a mockery of him and render his vain attempt at introduction unnecessary. However, her eyes glazed over and she glanced at the floor, her smile no longer one of wickedness, but one of deep reflection.

"I fell in love," she said.

Victor felt his cheeks flush a bright red at the sincerity of her statement and he was unable to write anything.

"I find it difficult to believe that love was the reason you were declared insane," he said.

"In which case, I find it difficult to believe that _you _have ever loved, Dr Frankenstein," she responded, looking him straight in the eye. "Love is the most beautiful sort of insanity there is."

Victor was not sure why, but he felt personally affronted by her words and was determined not to let it show on his face. His reaction, or rather lack of one, appeared to irritate her, for she sighed deeply and leaned back against the wall.

"Before I came here I lived with my Grandmother," she said, closing her eyes as if to focus on the words. "She owned an inn on the edge of the village, with trees on all sides. Travellers were always passing through and staying the night and some of them had been to so many places…places I would never see."

"And you fell in love with one of them?"

"Well, no, not exactly."

Ruby crumpled up her face in concentration and glanced down at her hands as if hoping to find the answers in them.

"A boy arrived once, his name was Peter," she said. "His master was some grand chancellor of somewhere or another, but Peter was a farmer's son through and through. They arrived in a thunderstorm and the horses refused to settle, such poor wretches that they were. A word from Peter, though, and they were docile as sheep and I found myself wondering how it might feel to have him whispering calm words in my ear and stroking his hands against my skin. I took him into my bed while his master was asleep."

She smiled contentedly, as if reliving the experience.

"The next morning he asked if I wanted to go back with him, but I said no. He had such delicate hands and a kind smile, but other than that he was the same as all of the other village boys. Sometime later another man came travelling, a carpenter named William. He was his own master and knew each portion of a carriage so well that I wondered about his understanding of a woman's body," she said. "The day he left, his back was bloody and his throat was hoarse, but still he begged me to go back to the city with him and be his wife."

Victor had tightened his grip on the pencil at the mention of bloody backs and, despite himself, found he was curious about the outcome.

"But you refused?"

"Of course," she said. "When it came to conversation, he was something of a bore. Are you married, Victor?"

He wondered whether to acknowledge her question. She had not asked very many personal ones and he was not sure if talking about Elizabeth would be considered proper. Jekyll had not instructed him of the proper etiquette during those sorts of situations.

"We are not here to discuss my personal affairs," he said. "Please finish your story."

"Only if you answer my question."

Victor sighed.

"I have been engaged since childhood, though we have yet to be married," he said, deliberately leaving out Elizabeth's name. "I do believe my Father wishes to wait until I have completed my studies before the ceremony."

She seemed disappointed by his answer and rolled her eyes.

"After William, a Lordling much like you came to stay at our humble inn," she said, savouring the word 'lordling' as if it pleased her immensely. "He was quite an ugly thing, with a pot belly and rotten teeth, and made it his mission to complain about everything – from cobwebs to the stew. His steward on the other hand," she giggled, "he was something else. My Grandmother warned me to keep the Lordling happy, no matter what it took, but when he asked me to warm his bed I was far too repulsed to consider it. I made my excuses, told him I had my menses, and went straight to the steward's bed instead. It all seemed like such a good idea, only the pompous bastard followed me and pretended he was offended by my 'lustful nature'. A bit of gold in the right pockets and soon enough there were Doctors scripting letters to our inn, claiming that my reproductive organs had taken over my brain and it was for the better that I was sent away. You doctors are all the same; you know nothing of love, and in the end you just do as you're told."

Once again Victor remembered the vixen from his childhood. He remembered reaching out to stroke the red fur, only for one of the hunting dogs to jump out and wrestle it to the floor before he could tell how it felt. The hunting team assembled round him, each watching the fox struggle, waiting for the command for the dog to slaughter the thing right before their eyes. It was an order that never passed, however, for Father stepped forward and pushed his own hunting blade into Victor's hands.

"Go on and prove yourself, Victor," he said. "This shall be your first kill as a man of House Frankenstein."

Victor wanted to tell them all that he was a _boy_ and he wanted to go home and play tin soldiers with Gerhardt, but he also wanted Father to pat him on the back and say how proud he was. The fox was the first creature he ever dissected and he made such a messy, hacking job of it as a result of his shaking hands that he left the beautiful, amber coat in tatters and received a stern reprimand from Father, who had intended to use it to make a pair of gloves.

He could not help but think that when he looked into the girl's eyes, it was just like looking into the eyes of the vixen he had sliced open. She did not know the story, yet she looked betrayed nonetheless.

His chest was uncomfortably tight and he averted his gaze from hers, assembling the papers in his lap so clumsily that the pencil slipped from his hand and rolled across the floor, stopping when it made contact with Ruby's knees. She picked it up and lifted it so that he could take it from her, the sound of her shackles suddenly deafening once again. Victor stood up and tucked the papers under his arm, clenching and unclenching his fists and trying his hardest not to meet her gaze. It was such a simple action, yet his stomach writhed as if he was staring down the barrel of a gun or reaching into the mouth of a lion.

He leaned forward, suddenly conscious of everything. His breathing was too fast, he thought, his glasses in danger of slipping further along his nose than usual and the back of his neck had suddenly started to itch. He didn't dare look at his patient's plump lips and bright eyes, nor her white teeth and wide smile and he squeezed his eyes shut as he snatched the pencil from her and retreated towards the cell door.

"That will be all for today's session," he muttered as he knocked on the door and waited for the guards to drag it open. The second the door was shut, he leaned against it, gasping for air as if he had been drowning.

* * *

Elizabeth hated visiting Lord Frankenstein's study, for it was not the sort of place she visited of her own volition. As a girl, she had been sent there for punishment and had far from fond memories of being sentenced to tea parties while the Master of the house signed more important letters. It was in the study that Lord Frankenstein decided she was marry Victor and in that same room that all of her own Father's handwritten documents were kept. The details of her inheritance were enclosed in those documents, but Elizabeth did not care one whit about how rich her Father's untimely death had made her.

After the men returned from the smoking room, it took relatively little persuasion to get the Burns girls to demonstrate their skills on the piano. Each of them picked a particularly complicated piece and attempted to catch Gerhardt's eye as they played. Lord Frankenstein mentioned a fine bottle of whiskey in his study and excused himself while he went to fetch it, leaving Gerhardt the centre of attention. Even a lifetime as the baby of the house was not preparation enough for Lady Burns' coos and fussing and comments about his physique, all while the girls played the piano with increasing ferocity and attempted to distract him from one another's performances. She caught his eye when she excused herself and noticed that all she saw there was a wide-eyed cry for help, with the same sort of clarity as if he had crawled across the carpet, grabbed hold of her ankle and hissed 'don't leave me here'.

She convinced herself that she would not be gone for long, since Lord Frankenstein's study was not far away, but it all seemed so much easier in her imagination than when she was actually standing in front of the door, summoning the courage to knock. When she was a girl, the door had seemed eternal, like a never-ending mass of brass and mahogany that stretched to the end of the world. As an adult her opinion had only changed in the literal sense. While the door itself did not stretch to the end of the world, she knew that the mutters that took place behind it certainly did.

She forced herself to knock and slipped inside the room before she could change her mind. Lord Frankenstein was in the middle of taking a bottle of whiskey from his desk drawer and, when he heard the door close behind her, he lifted it into his arms.

"Ah, my son, I-" he turned, clearly expecting Gerhardt and falling silent when he saw it was not. "Elizabeth?"

She curtseyed, feeling the uncomfortable silence set in like a nettle rash. She and the Lord Frankenstein spoke about as much as she and Victor did and the conversations were almost always as awkward. Not only was she a girl after all, but she was the daughter of another man. He had no obligation to show her any affection or even treat her kindly, unlike the late Lady Frankenstein, who had braided her hair and offered a mother's embrace before bed.

"Did something happen in the drawing room?"

"No. I wanted to speak with you. Alone."

"Well you are here, speaking with me," he set the whiskey on the desk, "and as you can see, we are quite alone. Now, what is it you want?"

Elizabeth wasn't sure what to make of the fact that his automatic assumption was that there must be something she wanted, but she decided not to comment on it.

"Lady Burns has expressed an interest in arranging a marital pact between Gerhardt and one of her daughters, my Lord," she said. "She claims that the match would be prosperous to both sides."

Lord Frankenstein did not even bother to look surprised.

"Ah. And I suppose that in exchange she has offered to use the Major's military connections to further Gerhardt's career?"

Elizabeth had been so sure when Lady Burns first proposed the idea that Lord Frankenstein would laugh it off and make some excuse, since he had not even bothered to ask for their help himself, yet he did not laugh at all and instead seemed to have anticipated it.

"Yes, my Lord," she said, a terrible chill creeping up her spine. How was she to explain the betrayal to Gerhardt? She had only gone to the study in the first place because of her absolute conviction that Lord Frankenstein would refuse the offer. If he accepted it, then she had all but doomed him to a lifetime of being the Burns girls' ragdoll.

"I do believe this match _would_ be quite prosperous… don't you, Elizabeth?" asked Lord Frankenstein, half-heartedly examining some of the documents that littered his desk.

Elizabeth did not know why he suddenly cared about her opinion.

"It is not my place to say, sir," she said, causing him to laugh out loud. His body shook with laughter, but his eyes were hard as pebbles.

"Why not? It is a simple enough question!"

Elizabeth wanted to tell him that the match was _not_ prosperous, for it meant she would lose Gerhardt; if not from betrayal, then almost certainly through marriage. She wanted to tell him that she never wanted Gerhardt to leave the house or go to war and she certainly did not want to marry Victor but once she said any of those things they could not be retracted, so instead she did not say anything at all. She watched the way that Lord Frankenstein scanned her face, as if waiting for something.

"I suppose…from a financial perspective," she forced, conscious all of the time of his cold eyes on her, "that it would be most fortuitous…but really, my opinion on the matter is…"

"Of course, of course," said Lord Frankenstein, lifting the bottle of whiskey again. "Return to Lady Burns at once and inform her of my assent. I imagine that if she speaks to the Major quickly enough, we can have the matter in writing before the night is out."

Elizabeth might have been calm on the surface, but on the inside she was a veritable mess of anger and sorrow and rage. She wanted to fall to the floor and weep, but she would rather die than give the Lord the satisfaction of seeing her so unhappy. Instead she dug her teeth into her bottom lip, nodded her head and muttered 'my lord', then turned to take the door handle, wondering why he had bothered to summon her at all if everything had been in hand from the start.

As the cool metal of the door handle brushed against her skin, she had something of an epiphany and turned back to face the Lord.

"My Lord," she said, smiling widely. "There is one other thing."

"Yes?"

"Did I pass the test?"

He did not pretend to look offended, instead smiled in such a way that she felt physically sick.

"Oh, Elizabeth," he said, as if she had said something utterly ridiculous. "You always do."

* * *

"'_Oranges and Lemons,'_

_Say the bells of St Clements."_

Jefferson usually thought about a lot of things as he entered the third floor of Miss Mayfair's, as he found that it helped to take his mind off the mismatched tiling and stained walls better than any amount of breathing exercises or alcohol. The only thing on his mind as he entered with the malformed cat, however, was how utterly _late_ he was. He knew even before he heard the singing that he was in dire straits indeed.

"'_You owe me five farthings,'_

_Say the bells of St Martins."_

The third floor corridor was usually one of the quietest, filled with patients that did not dare misbehave for fear of being locked in the dark with the girl even the asylum staff were scared of. Naturally, Jefferson had heard many of the rumours that circulated his patient, since the 'curable' girls were so eager to gain his approval that it was easy to coax almost any information that he wanted from them. The majority of them were blatant falsehoods, of course, and he would laugh them off over his ale. Some of the girls were convinced that Alice turned into a rabbit after dark, for they had seen her shadow hopping round the asylum and under their beds, a story that he found so funny he told anyone who would listen.

_"When will you pay me?'_

_Say the bells of Old Bailey."_

There was one story, though, that never made him laugh.

Sometimes a 'curable' girl would take him by the hand and look into his eyes, a glimmer of fear in her own.

"Say, Dr Jefferson," she might say. "Is it true that patient 306 cut off a man's head?"

He could never bring himself to laugh at that and did not mention it to any of the other doctors. He did not have to, for that story was not like the others. It _was_ true. More specifically, she had cut it off with a blunted knife made for cutting cakes and placed it atop the tray like some sort of macabre trophy, all while her sisters screamed.

"'_When I grow rich,'_

_Say the bells of Shoreditch."_

The Count paid a silver coin to a woman in the village, who came and sat outside Alice's door while Jefferson was out. Nine times out of ten she fell asleep at the post, but she was a pleasant enough woman and spent most of her waking hours knitting scarves 'to keep out the chill', even in the midst of summer. The woman's name was Mary-Ann and when Jefferson arrived at room 306, she sat quaking on the floor, her knuckles white and a knitting needle in her hand, all while Alice's singing rang out from inside. Jefferson took off his hat and combed his fingers through his hair, allowing the cat to slip inside the rim and nestle inside.

"Mary-Ann," he whispered, leaning over. "Mary-Ann. Are you alright?"

"'_When will that be?'_

_Say the bells of Stepney."_

Her eyes snapped open at the sound of his voice and she stared at him for a few seconds as if wondering who he was.

"Oh, Dr Jefferson," she said, cowering away from the door. "I thought you would never come."

He reached out a hand and helped her to her feet.

"Don't worry," he said. "I always get here eventually."

"'_I do not know,'_

_Say the Great bells of Bow."_

Mary-Ann rubbed her temples and reached into her pocket for the keys to each padlock. Her hands trembled and it took several minutes for them all to click open, and even when they had she hesitated, finally turning to him and shaking her head.

"I'm sorry, Dr Jefferson, it's just," she crumpled up her face. "I can't stand to see her like this."

Jefferson patted her on the shoulder and took hold of the handle himself.

"Make sure you shut the door behind me," he said, steeling himself for whatever he might find. Alice did not react well to lateness, something the rich doctors attributed to her noble background. Of course, they did not know the details of her treatment, which was actually the root cause of it all.

Cell 306 was one of the biggest in Miss Mayfair's and, since it was funded so generously by the Liddell family, its contents were far more luxurious than the bedrooms of most noble girls. It was a cell, but a gilded one, with fuchsia hanging silks and porcelain dolls in frilly dresses and china tea sets neatly arranged side by side in cabinets on the wall. Ordinarily the porcelain dolls were placed around the small wooden table that Alice had been given, ready for afternoon tea, but one of the first things Jefferson passed as he stepped inside the cell was two piles. One was a pile of dolls. The other was a pile of their heads.

"_Here comes a candle _

_to light you to bed."_

There was a dressing screen on the other side of the room made of the same pink silk that dominated her room, lovingly embroidered with the likeness of flowers. Some were white and others were red, though at some point the red ones had been torn out, leaving gaping holes in the screen. A little in front of the screen was a broken tea cup and he lowered himself onto his hands and knees to examine the pieces. He found something of an irony in the fact that before his work in the asylum he had never seen bone china.

"_Here comes a chopper_

_to chop off your head!_"

All at once, the grinning cat jumped out of his top hat and hid under the table and a pair of cold hands arranged themselves around his neck.

"_Chip Chop, Chip Chop_

_The last man's dead!_"

Jefferson shuddered and rose to his feet, turning to the person who had captured him so easily. She was blonde, short and in possession of a pretty face marred only by deep black bags under her eyes. She wore a white dress with lace embellishments that had been designed for a young girl and not a woman in her early twenties, especially not one with a stomach so swollen as hers.

"You startled me," he said and she pouted.

"You're late."

"I'm sorry," he said, "my carriage back from town was rather-"

She grabbed his hand.

"Let's have tea!"

Immediately she moved over to her tea table and traced her fingers along each of her tea pots, before picking out one with a butterfly and caterpillar design. It was one of her favourites, he understood, though it only made what he was about to say even more difficult.

"Alice, I," he watched the way she hummed while she picked out cups. "We can't carry on like this. I…can't keep sending you to Wonderland."

She had not truly reacted to his words until the final sentence, when she froze completely, teacup in hand. Her bottom lip wobbled as if he had told her there was no cake left.

"What do you mean?"

"It's not good for you," he said. "If you keep going there, soon you won't be able to come back."

She giggled and continued rummaging through her teacups as if he had said nothing of concern.

"Oh Jefferson, you're so silly. I don't _want_ to come back. Wonderland's my home."

"But you have a real home, with sisters and a mother. Don't you want to go back to them when all of this is over?"

SMASH

Alice dropped a teacup to the floor and laughed out loud at the sound.

"How easily they break!" she exclaimed, before picking out a second cup. She had not acknowledged his question. Jefferson knew it was deliberate.

"Alice, Wonderland isn't real. It's a chemical, a _drug_."

That got her attention.

"And what else do I have?" she snapped, even going so far as to lose the girlish voice that she put on for theatrics. "They all told me that if I was good and did as I was told, my life would be an endless playground, yet here I am."

"You murdered a man."

"He killed me first."

She smoothed her hand over her enormous stomach and then beamed as if snapping out of some sort of hypnosis.

"Now, shall we have milk in our tea?" she asked, reverting back to that girlish voice that Jefferson hated. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the glass vial of black powder that had been the root cause for his trip into town. He had deliberately delayed his return to Miss Mayfair's and entered the place with little to no intention of giving in and sending her to the place she called Wonderland, but he had not counted on the fact that at some point her happiness had taken precedence over his own.

Alice spoke of Wonderland as her salvation and the thing she loved most in the world; the thing that she absolutely could not live without. Jefferson _hated_ Wonderland. And yet – and this was the strange part, for it was within his power to do so – he knew he could never take it away from her.

* * *

After leaving cell 405 Victor sought out Dr Hopper in the hopes that he might show him where the asylum records were kept. After wandering for the best part of an hour through corridors that looked almost identical, he found him applauding a redheaded girl on her skills with the harpsichord, which was all very well, but it was quite a distance from the fourth floor corridor where he had been led to believe Dr Hopper's patient actually was.

Dr Hopper was naturally quite sheepish when he realised he was being watched and stood up from his seat with such haste that his notebook fell to the floor, leaving several pressed daisy chains to spill out from between the pages. He shoved them back inside before anyone else could see, but Victor knew that the event had embarrassed him from the way that his face flushed a vibrant red and he did not stop adjusting his glasses until they arrived at the records room.

"Patient records a-are arranged by their current room number," he said, pulling open the nearest cabinet. "Since R-ruby is kept in room 405, that's the only number you need to remember."

He pulled out a rather large box, the lid of which was tied down with string.

"Ah, thank you Dr Hopper, you've been most helpful," said Victor, taking hold of the string. "I shall have this memorised before nightfall."

Dr Hopper glanced from the box to him and broke out into a smile.

"I think you misunderstand, Dr Frankenstein," he said. "Those a-are only the notes of the _first_ doctor. There are ten other boxes just like it."

Victor laughed.

"Then I should get started immediately!"

Only when Dr Hopper had left the room did he exhale deeply and wonder what on earth he had gotten himself into. He managed to lift four of the boxes into his arms in the end, wincing under the weight of them as he hobbled through his bedroom door and hauled them onto his desk. Dr Hopper had said nothing about there being any sort of regulations with regard to where the notes could and could not be taken, and since Victor was the only man treating Ruby he presumed that it did not matter much where he took them so long as they were returned in pristine condition.

Before leaving, Dr Hopper had told him that lunch would soon be served, but Victor had claimed that he lacked an appetite. That was a lie. As he untied the first box his stomach growled mournfully and he wished he had helped himself to an extra slice of toast at breakfast. He felt weak, unable to focus and when he first began to read, he could barely see the words.

It was his own fault, of course. He knew that. If he allowed himself a little rest then he would not feel so terrible, but so long as the woman in cell 405 preyed on his every waking thought he was not sure how he was expected to sleep. The churning in his stomach had not ceased and he could not erase the image of her licking her lips from his mind. He had expected someone with a shaven head that screamed at imagined slights in the asylum, not something so beautiful. It was like finding a flower in a slaughterhouse and Victor felt. No. He did not know how he felt and he was sure that that was the problem. He had been so certain of what he would find in Miss Mayfair's that the second he did not he was unable to place an ounce of logic upon anything.

If he read through all of the notes and journal entries concerning her, Victor was convinced that he would be able to find evidence of some sort of malady that put everything in a more agreeable perspective. Perhaps he might find that her cranial measurements were slightly miscalculated or she had not had her blood let for quite some time. At that stage, he was willing to accept any proof of her insanity so that he could distance himself from her.

He turned to the first page in the first box – the one taken upon her imprisonment within the asylum by a Dr Monteith. Almost automatically, Victor searched for the information that had grabbed his curiosity from the beginning and smiled when he saw it in clear black and white. Her last name, it appeared, was Lucas and he was clearly not the only one to be interested by it.

"Lucas," Dr Monteith scripted in incredibly neat handwriting, "is an interesting reference to the old people of Lucania; a long forgotten region by the Gulf of Taranto. In the purest language, by which I of course mean Greek, the name may be taken as an evolution of the word _Lykos_."

"Wolf," Victor muttered aloud.

* * *

After the Burns family finally set off on the first portion of their journey home, Major Burns red in the face from the copious amounts of alcohol he had consumed, Elizabeth retired to bed. She was ready to close her eyes and pretend everything that had happened that day was a dream; nothing more than a little bit of imagined silliness that she could walk away from on the morrow. She changed into her nightgown rather more enthusiastically than usual and sat absolutely still while Justine pulled a brush through her hair – the same routine as when they were giggling children, with the notable exception that they were both significantly better behaved. Justine did not backcomb her hair anymore in jest or braid it to within an inch of its life and, likewise, Elizabeth did not play tag and run away from the brush.

Her room was her safe haven, where she was not Elizabeth of the Lavenza fortune, but a girl as any other. She might have lost her father, her fortune and had her destiny moulded by someone else, but her dreams were her own. Whenever her corset was tightened or Lord Frankenstein announced some new idea he had had for her wedding, she reminded herself that nobody knew what she dreamed. Not even Justine, who knew all about her feelings for Gerhardt.

Justine was present while Elizabeth had tea with Lady Burns, but she had not asked any questions, even though there were probably hundreds she had in mind. Elizabeth loved her for that. In truth, the last thing she wanted was to remember what had happened the second she returned from the study and saw Gerhardt surrounded by the Burns family. He had looked up at her in relief, as if she had saved him from some terrible fate indeed, except she knew that she had sentenced him to something far worse. She had turned her eyes away from Gerhardt and straight across at Lady Burns, giving her the nod that meant everything.

For the rest of the afternoon, she had listened to the Burns girls squabble over who was better on the piano, finally taking a turn on the instrument herself so that she could concentrate on the music without worrying about the way that Gerhardt tried to catch her eye and swap seats with other people in the room so that he might speak with her. She played Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' and tried not to sob onto the keys.

There was a knock at the door and Justine laid aside the hairbrush to answer it. She had sent another maid to fetch some lavender water, so Elizabeth paid it no mind and instead looked across at her window, wondering what Victor was up to at Miss Mayfair's. Of course, the second she heard squabbling coming from the doorway, she quickly turned back

"Master Frankenstein, I must protest," Justine said, trying to push the door shut and struggling. "It is most improper!"

_Master Frankenstein?_

Elizabeth's heart leapt into her mouth.

"Please Justine, I just want to speak with her," came Gerhardt's voice on the other side, before pushing on the door with such force that Justine lost her balance and he came striding inside. He instantly walked over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Miss Elizabeth!" cried out Justine, hurrying back into the room.

Elizabeth looked up at Gerhardt and in that moment she forgot that they were standing in her bedroom while she wore her nightclothes and not so much as a wrap.

"Leave us," she said and, despite her noises of protest, Justine obeyed.

Elizabeth's heart beat so quickly that she felt rather dizzy and for a while she did not say a word, settling instead for the sound of her breaths and his against the silence of the room. She did not know why she was surprised that her efforts to avoid him had counted for nothing in the end; Gerhardt was always the one who came looking for her when she fell off her horse, or sat crying in the vineyard.

"Father has just announced some rather interesting news," he said, in a tone that was semi-accusatory. "He says that I am to court one of the Burns girls and eventually marry one of them in exchange for a military position."

Elizabeth pretended to look surprised.

"Oh. Oh dear. Which one?"

Gerhardt took his hand away from her shoulder and immediately Elizabeth shivered from his absence.

"He also told me something rather interesting," he said. "That _you_ were instrumental to the affair."

He looked so sad, as if she had stabbed him in the back and salted the wound. She bit her lip, telling herself that she had to be resolute.

"We all have to play our parts, Gerhardt," she said and he turned away, as if seeing her say them was far too much for him to bear. Finally he turned back to her, his eyes shimmering with all of the tears she had not allowed herself to cry.

"Some of us, it seems, are better than others," he all but spat.

"What do you want from me? My life is not my own, so how am I to give it to you?"

He approached her, slowly, and cupped her face with both hands.

"Fool," he said. "That's not enough. I want everything."

And just like that he kissed her.

Elizabeth knew she ought to have resisted, even as she backed into her bedroom wall and wrapped her arms around him, needing his body close to hers more than she needed air. She was only truly alive when he held her, with his hot breath against her skin.

He could only be hers in her dreams, but it felt as the world she knew was shattering around her and soon they would be all she had. In that sense he would always be hers. Her body, her fortune and her life were forfeit in the grand scheme of things, but her dreams could never be taken.

* * *

The first thing Victor knew, he was alone. He was not opposed to being alone, of course, since he had spent so much of his life cooped up in libraries but he had a strange feeling that somehow that probably wasn't supposed to be the case. He glanced around at his surroundings and squinted.

He appeared to be standing in the middle of his Father's woodland in Geneva, and from how utterly dark it was, he guessed that it was night-time. The moon was full and cast a ghostly silver light over everything, which he admired for a while before taking a step forward. In the half light, everything appeared to be black and white with no go between, a feat of nature that had always intrigued him.

From the way the leaves crunched underfoot and the air around him smelled both sharp and rich at the same time, he assumed that autumn had just arrived, which confused him for reasons he did not know. Still, he decided that being out in the woods in the middle of the night was far from a good idea, for he might put himself at risk of-

-he blinked.

For a moment he thought he had seen a flash of red between the trees, so fast that he wondered if he had just imagined it in his musings of autumn. He shook his head and laughed at his own idiocy. Gerhardt would have a field day if he ever found out his dullard brother was seeing things in the forest after dark. Why, he could practically imagine his-

-but, wait.

There it was again, that time on the opposite side to him than it had been before. Whatever the thing was, it was circling him. He wondered why he could not hear its footsteps on leaves that made such a racket whenever he so much as breathed, before reaching into his pocket for a blade or a pistol – anything that might protect him. In the end all he found was a single box of matches and he lit one, hoping that whatever the thing was was afraid of fire.

"Who's out there?" he called, brandishing the feeble match and turning to find the path.

He dropped the match when he saw a wooden cabin a little way to the left, through the trees. He did not remember the cabin ever being there, but he had a duty to warn its owners about the beast that prowled the lands around it. As he grabbed hold of the door handle, he heard a wolf howl in the distance and all but threw himself the threshold.

"Sir, Madame!" he called as he did so, expecting there to be patrons or at least an owner inside.

Except there wasn't. The entire room was lit by candles, with a single bed in the centre and a coat rack in the corner, from which a single red cloak was hanging. The cloak grabbed Victor's attentions, for it was so very _red_ and he reached out to touch it. The second his fingers brushed against the fabric, however, the wolves howled outside and the cabin door flew open as if it had been kicked.

"H-Hello?" said Victor, peering outside and preparing to explain himself. He expected an angry owner to be waiting for him, who he might have offended and need to apologise to at once, but that wasn't what he found at all. In fact, he was somewhat convinced that he was somewhere else entirely. Before he had been standing in the middle of the forest, with trees everywhere he looked. When he stepped back outside, he was at the side of a lake that he was certain had not been there before.

The moon was almost perfectly reflected on the water; almost, for the waters were not completely still and even the slightest movement cast ripples on the mirror-image. For a moment Victor forgot about the wolves, forgot about everything, and sat down by the edge of the water. It was a cold night and he hugged himself in an attempt to stay warm, his breath emerging as a white mist against the darkness. He did not remember such a place ever existing on his Father's lands and he decided that he must memorise each detail so he could revisit it with Gerhardt on the morrow.

He did not notice the splashing at first, and when he did, he attributed it to some sort of waterfowl that lived in those parts. He did not spot the woman until she swam directly onto the reflection of the moon and stood up on one of the shallower banks to squeeze the excess water out of her dark hair. Victor knew her face. Yes. It was Ruby, patient 405 from Miss Mayfair's! But why was she in Geneva?

She was as naked as the day she was born and the water from her hair dripped down onto the curve of her breasts, along her stomach and down between her legs. Victor knew that he was being completely lecherous by watching, but he could not draw his eyes away from her. He no longer felt cold, for a strange heat had flooded his body, one that he attributed to the ever-increasing tension in his groin. He knew he desired her, for despite his lack of experience with the fairer sex, he had experienced arousal before. Examining anatomical sketches did wonders for the imagination.

He slipped a hand underneath his trousers and traced his fingers along the source of his problem, gasping at the sensation. He cursed his perversity, cursed his body for being so repulsive and then cursed it again for feeling so inexplicably good while being repulsive. He retracted the hand and squeezed his lips together, trying not to think of his need, or of the naked girl standing only a matter of metres away.

He turned to look at her, only to see that she was no longer standing by the lakeside. She was approaching him, her wet skin shimmering in the moonlight and a wide grin across her face. His heart skipped a beat, which unfortunately only made his current situation rather more severe. He wondered if she knew the state he was in and was instantly flooded with shame. If she lived on his Father's lands then she undoubtedly paid taxes to the Frankenstein name and the thought of her seeing him so aroused and fondling himself to boot was just too much for him to bear.

"I'm so very sorry," he said, and she smiled and placed a cold finger on his lips.

"Don't be."

She straddled him and placed soft kisses on his jaw and neck, her hands roaming underneath his shirt and making short work of the buttons. He closed his eyes at the sensation of her wet hair against his bare chest, his arousal becoming so overwhelming that it bordered on an ache, when she dug her teeth into his collar bone and reached down under his trousers to the source of his need. He took in one sharp breath, barely daring to breathe as she gripped his erection, digging her teeth into his flesh until she drew blood before tightening her grip on the organ. She was waiting, but what for?

"P…Please…I…" he could barely breathe, let alone talk, but his words seemed to satiate her. Slowly, so slowly that it bordered on torture, she moved her hand up and down, from the base to the tip.

It felt good, but the pressure wasn't easing. If anything, it was building up even more.

"Please," he gasped. "Please…"

It had worked before and he was desperate enough to believe that it might work again. Instead she stopped her ministrations entirely, before looking him in the face.

"Please what?"

She gave him a single, gentle squeeze as if to prompt him and he felt he understood. She was teasing him, the same way she had teased him in the cell. The worst part was that he was starting to think he liked it.

"Please…Ruby?"

She did not react. Somewhere behind them a wolf cried to the moon, though neither of them reacted.

"Please…my lady?"

Still no reaction.

"Please….girl?"

She appeared insulted by that one. He honestly believed he would say or do anything to persuade her to carry on and he was fairly certain that it was plastered across his face, for Ruby looked more than a little smug. She laughed and flashed each one of her bright white teeth in the process, before sitting up, ensuring that he watched her do so. She rearranged her position and dragged his trousers down to his knees, leaving him all but bare in the moonlight as well. Ordinarily he would have felt ashamed or even worried about witnesses, but her confidence was oddly contagious.

She sat back up onto her knees and licked her lips, her eyes never once leaving his, before sliding her fingertips against her tongue. She trailed a wet thumb along her breasts and bit her bottom lip. She completely ignored his erection, despite how prominent it had become and so heated…Victor was sure it was driving him mad.

"Please," he said, the words catching in his throat. "I beg you-"

He would say anything.

He would do anything.

He didn't know what else to say.

She kissed him again, hungrier this time, digging her teeth into his neck and her nails across his chest, taking the kisses lower, across his chest and down to his stomach. She slipped her tongue over his navel and he inhaled sharply, arching his back and bucking his hips without realising. She placed a kiss slightly lower, still without so much as looking at his solid erection.

He wanted to scream at her, to make her understand how much her teasing was sending him over the edge, though he knew that that was probably the point. She sucked at the skin underneath his navel, revelling in every tortured noise he made. He supposed he must have looked very tempting to her, his chest heaving, his eyes shut and his mouth wide open as he gasped for air, as even she bored of the game and flicked her tongue across the tip of his member.

To begin with she only slid her tongue along the sides of his manhood, so gently that he reached for her hair and gripped tightly, all while shuddering with pleasure. She was barely even touching him, yet it felt several times more intense than that and each time a strand of her hair brushed against him, he had to take a sharp intake of breath. The moment she took him into her mouth, he thought he had died and gone to heaven.

He could feel the tension building inside him, like a coil ready for release. He was close, so close and he whimpered at the pre-emptive waves of pleasure that spread through his body each time she bobbed her head. He did not know why she was in Geneva or, for that matter, what he was doing there, but as she sank her nails into his thighs he came the conclusion that he didn't care.

And then she stopped.

Victor moaned at her absence, only to look up at her in confusion as she sat up on her knees again. She caught his eyes in hers and reached down for his erection, manoeuvring it towards her heated entrance. She hissed with pleasure and sank down onto the tip. It was not far enough for either of them to gain very much satisfaction and Victor was tempted to make some jape, but then she sank down all of the way. They both howled with pleasure and arched their backs at the sensation. Ruby waited for a few seconds, perhaps to adjust, before rolling her hips against his, leaning back to deepen the thrusts. Victor bucked his own hips to match her pace, besotted by the sight of her nakedness against the full moon.

His climax was approaching and he gripped onto her thighs, speeding up his pace and silently urging her to do the same. He could feel her walls tightening around him, preparing for the moment when she would truly cry for the moon.

She leaned down, smiling and whispered the two words that finally finished him off:

"Bad wolf."

The next thing he knew, he was on the floor of his bedroom at Miss Mayfair's, his every muscle twitching and convulsing and releasing and shuddering in such a wonderfully uncontrollable way that for a while all he could do was lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling. When he was feeling a little braver, he sat up and grimaced at the hot liquid that had gathered in his undergarments and the way he was surrounded by a seemingly endless supply of paperwork that at some stage had probably made complete sense to him. He helped himself to his feet using the leg of his desk and sat down on the desk chair, rubbing his temples and glancing back at the scene of absolute disarray that was his bedroom. Between the disordered papers spread across the floor, inkwells and bed sheets, he would probably have been convinced that some sort of wild animal had trampled the place had he not known otherwise.

Some of the papers were still gathered on his desk and he gathered them together quickly, as if worried they might burn his fingers. He would have to make plans to speak with the Count after breakfast, he thought as he shoved them back into one of the boxes, not paying too much attention as to whether or not they were in the right order. As he picked up his own notes for the day, the pencil he had been using rolled to the floor and he hesitated before picking it up. He examined it, remembering the way she had held it out to him despite her shackles.

As he slipped the pencil into his pocket, he knew that at that point there was only one thing in the whole world of which he was absolutely certain, and that was that he could never return to cell 405.


	4. The White Queen

At seven o'clock sharp, the curable girls saw their doctors for the last time, taking whatever medications were deemed necessary and preparing for the final curfew of nine. Even though nobody had ever seen it done and so did not know the details, everybody knew that anyone caught out of bed after nine o'clock was punished most severely.

Few doctors spent very much time with their patients after the clock struck seven, preferring to run off to the common room for a game of backgammon and a nightcap instead. In that respect, Dr Hopper found he was rather different to his colleagues. He walked Miss Waters to her room when the clock struck seven as duty required, but was never in a hurry to leave her. Instead he would take a seat on the bed next to her, claiming that he intended to read to her until she fell asleep, while actually taking the time to examine her every reaction to the particularly dramatic plot points and cut off mid-sentence, waiting for her to fill in the blanks herself and therefore her muteness. The asylum did not have very many books beyond the bible, so Dr Hopper brought in his own dog-eared novels and read as many chapters as possible before nine o'clock, watching for which sort of scenes delighted her before scouring his bookshelf for something that would make her smile even more

Naturally, she was far too intelligent to fall for his tricks and almost never fell asleep, instead reaching out and frowning when it was time for him to leave. They had made a start on _Moby Dick_ and Melissa leaned her head on his shoulder as he read each word, paying more attention to him than the words. She did not complain the fact that although he had claimed to be reading to her until she fell asleep, on the odd occasion that her eyelids drooped he would nudge her awake again. Sometimes, when there was a word she did not recognise or an illustration she particularly liked, she would reach out and stroke her fingers across the paper and Dr Hopper would glance down at her long eyelashes and tell himself that he was damned.

Melissa seemed to like the brutish nature of Captain Ahab's lines, for she often reached out to touch them on the page, smiling broadly. In truth, _Moby Dick_ was one of his favourite books for he saw himself in the rather more rational Starbuck and he overemphasised Ahab's voice so that Starbuck's whisper was more apparent, which he guessed she approved of for she smiled and clapped her hands before motioning for him to turn the page. Archie glanced at his pocket watch and saw that it was almost nine and therefore nearly time for him to leave.

"Perhaps we should carry on from here tomorrow," he said, sighing at the sight of the pout that immediately dominated her features. She did not protest, she _could_ not protest, yet still it broke his heart to see her so sad.

Perhaps if he pretended to have had the clock upside down or that he had never seen it, he could sit a while longer with her, turning the page and watching her expression of delight at each new development in the story. He wanted to stay there more than anything, but he knew that if he did then he would never leave, so instead he stood up and placed the book in her hands.

"Here," he said, adjusting his glasses. "Why don't you read on a little more and tell me about it tomorrow?"

He wanted to hear her voice, hear her say which characters were her favourites rather than pick apart her body language piece by piece. She traced her fingers along the embossed lettering on the cover before setting the book down and standing up herself, tightly wrapping her fingers around his hands. It was not the book she wanted to stay and Archie only wished he could, though still he found himself slipping his hand from hers.

"I shall…see you in the morning!" he said, turning to leave, just for her to take his hand once more and place a soft kiss on his cheek, a kiss that still tingled his skin many hours later.

* * *

The candles were rose scented and flickered occasionally in the darkness of the room. Behind the confines of her blindfold, Ruby could see the amber light and she shifted against the cold stone slab, moaning as the bright red rope he had used to bind her limbs chafed against her. He had bound her wrists so that they rested comfortably underneath her head and spread eagled her legs, leaving a single, fine thread of fabric to tightly rub against her folds if ever she moved.

_Cunning bastard_, she thought, grinning. _My kind of man._

And then she heard footsteps approaching.

"Now, Ruby," he said, sending shudders straight to her core. "You've been a very naughty girl. And do you know what happens to naughty girls?"

She sank her teeth into the leather gag he had fixed around her mouth and ground her hips, sighing at the ripples of pleasure that she gained as a result. He dragged off her blindfold and she stared up into his handsome face, taking in his dark lab coat, his rose tinted glasses, his shadowy eyes.

"Would you like me to tell you?" he said, smiling crookedly.

She tried to talk, but settled instead for making incoherent noises against the gag. It seemed to please him, for he stroked the very tips of his fingers along each of her toes, tracing them to the inside of her thighs, along her heated core and up along her stomach until he reached her chin.

"They get punished."

He stroked his finger along her jawline and her stomach churned with anticipation. She did not know how he expected her to last for much longer, considering he had only touched her in the briefest of fashions and already she was close.

"Tell me, Ruby," he said, lifting a candle from the cabinet next to him. "Shall we begin?"

He hooked his finger under the gag and looked her straight in the eye, taking in how utterly clouded over with lust they were no doubt, or perhaps just meaning to torment her. It did not matter either way, for Ruby stared right back at him, daring him to continue, to slip one finger close enough to her teeth that she might nip at the skin. Finally, when she was starting to think he was never going to move, he tipped the candle and allowed a drop of hot wax to land on her collar bone. The sudden heat made her gasp and she shuddered as a small wave of pleasure flooded her core, causing her to arch her back and bite back against the gag. It was a release, yes, but only a miniaturised version of what she had originally been building up to and she glared up at the doctor standing above her, still gasping for air. He tipped the candle again, lower, over her right breast and Ruby squeezed her eyes shut as the wax dribbled over the sensitive skin of her nipple. She could not help but gasp and squirm at the stinging heat that bordered on pain and pleasure.

Each drop of wax shifted her focus away from the ache between her thighs and Victor's pace was far from consistent. He could not regulate the way the candle dripped or how the wax landed, meaning that she would recover from the shock of one, just for another to land mere moments later or wait for so long that the anticipation dominated her every thought. She was not sure when she lost her awareness of each individual drop of wax, only that one moment she was conscious of every splash against her skin and her body twitched and turned, instinctually moving away from the heat and pain, while at the same time filling her with a tremendous need for more and the next she was outright arching her back towards the heat of the candle. She needed that heat, the pain, all of it for the increasing ache in the pit of her stomach, which Victor seemed to notice, for he put the candle to one side. She leaned her head and watched his every move, making muffled noises of protest in response.

She needed that candle for her release, and she had a feeling he knew that from the way he made a point to look her in the eye before leaning over and blowing it out.

_Oh you bastard,_ Ruby thought, breaking out into a grin nonetheless. _Just wait until it's my turn;_ _I'll have you screaming the names of Gods you don't even believe in._

He slipped one finger underneath the gag and over her lips, dragging off the leather in one swift motion.

"Now, tell me," he said, tossing the gag to one side and lifting a knife. "Have you been a naughty girl?"

He scraped the knife edge against the dried wax on the inside of her thighs and Ruby moaned loudly at the mixture of sensations.

"Y…." she managed to make out, only to lose herself in the increased sensitivity.

"I cannot hear you," said Victor disapprovingly.

"Y-"

"Louder!"

"Yes, master!" she all but squealed, the tension building again. She squirmed, wishing she could only reach him so that she could wrap her arms around him. As if in response, he smiled and cut the rope that kept her legs in such a restrictive position. She stretched them out in relief, flexing her toes and easing her overstretched muscles, focussing on the mixture of release and discomfort that she gained from the action. Victor was on the move too, placing the knife back on the tray it had come from and lifting a riding crop. Ruby felt a pang of lust at the very thought of what he planned to do with it and she bit her bottom lip as she watched him trail his fingers along it in almost exactly the sort of way she wanted him to trail them along her. Victor could make her jealous of even the most mundane things, it seemed, from a fork at dinner, to the clothes that surrounded his body at all times. She had no idea how he managed to make her jealous of a piece of a riding crop, but from the way he smirked at her she was certain that he meant to.

"Now, tell me," he said, stretching out the riding crop where she could see it. "What happens to naughty girls?"

She grinned so widely that all of her teeth were bare.

"They get _punished,_" she said, before screaming as the riding crop hit the inside of her thighs.

"Do they? Are you quite certain of that?"

She laughed and then she heard it; the swish of the leather in the air, followed by the thud as it made contact with her flesh and her own hiss of pain. It left a stinging, throbbing sensation in its wake, yet she found she wanted it, hungered for more. She watched as Victor stood, panting, holding the riding crop aloft and wondered which she wanted more.

He could control the rhythm of the riding crop far better than the candle, which he used to his advantage, throwing all of his weight forward and letting her believe that he was about to flog her most severely, just to step back right at the last second and gently trail the riding crop across her skin.

"Look at me," he commanded when her skin was bloodied and raw and her chest heaved with every breath. She did not even remember closing her eyes and arching her back, only that when she opened them he had abandoned the riding crop and had reached for his manhood, stroking the soft skin and tempting her with its heat. She bit her lip and gasped, wanting it inside her and willing him to bury it deep.

"You've been terribly bad," he said, shuddering at his own touch. "I don't think you deserve this."

Even behind his glasses, she could tell that his eyes were clouded over by lust and Ruby dragged at the robes that bound her wrists, just to whimper when they held. She wanted to reach out and touch him more than anything; to grab him and drag him onto her and have him love her senseless, but he ignored every noise she made.

"I deserve it," she protested, her voice little more than a sob. "I do, I do!"

He upped his own strokes and made a noise of approval.

"I might just stand here and make you watch," he said, smirking at the way she thrashed against the ropes. "That's what happens to bad girls, after all."

"I'm not a bad girl!"

"Oh? Are you sure?"

She laughed.

"I'm the _worst_."

He let go of his cock and reached for the knife again, cutting the ropes that bound her wrists. Ruby cried out at the sensation as they were released and he climbed onto the stone, running her fingers through his hair and dragging him in for a hungry kiss. He rolled his hips and she gasped with pleasure.

When she opened her eyes, she was on the floor of her cell in 405 covered in a sheen of sweat, her core flooded with ecstasy and her walls tightening and unclenching with such force and speed that she could do little more than stare at the ceiling. The shackles, she noticed, were still intact.

Like so many girls before her, when she arrived at Miss Mayfair's School For Wayward Girls, Ruby Lucas had not been terribly afraid of the consequences. With a name like that and the fees paid, she had seen it as an adventure. Back then, she felt that the lordling meant to punish her by taking her away from home and she went to bed with a smile on her face, feeling that the joke was on them. She had always longed for adventure, had she not? He had accidentally done her a favour.

Her Grandmother was far less enthusiastic about it all and saw nothing wrong with reminding her of that fact.

"They might dress it up with promises of ribbons and a warm bed, but it's a prison the same as any other," she warned as she washed the linens. "Mind you don't forget it!"

Ruby had smiled and kissed her on the cheek.

"Oh, Grandmother, you're such a worrywart," she said, pegging the freshly washed linens out to dry and taking in the bleached smell as the wind took hold of them. "If it is a school then perhaps they will teach me to read!"

When she looked around her cell all of those years later, she laughed at her naivety. The doctors had no interest in her beyond her condition and most barely even looked at her, let alone offered to teach her her letters. The first man to enter her cell copied her name from the financial records and came to his own silent conclusions, ignoring the questions she asked about his wife and family and whether or not it was a pleasant morning. He never told her what he wrote in his notebook and the moment she lost her temper and snatched it out of his grasp to take a look, he ordered the guards to put her in chains. The next doctor obviously believed it was of the utmost importance that she be left that way, as did the one after that and the one after that, and she no longer grimaced when the guards dragged her to her feet first thing in the morning to take her to the communal showers.

Ruby spent most of her days in quiet contemplation, her back firmly pressed against the wall and her eyes shut, thinking of far off places. On the odd occasion that a doctor stepped across the threshold, she swallowed whatever pill they gave her but never went so far as to be polite. She no longer asked if they had a wife and, if so, what her name was for she knew she would never get an answer. She was just a patient, a crazy girl, and she was sure they regarded her in the same light as a pile of filth.

During the day, her shackles were fixed to the wall of her cell, but at night she was allowed to sleep on the hard bed assigned to her upon her arrival. She slept in the chains and even showered with them on, so much so that their sound and presence was as much a part of her as her hands and feet. When she went to bed she would stare at the ceiling as she tried to get comfortable, imagining how it must feel to sleep on a feather bed and be able to stretch whenever the mood struck. When Ruby closed her eyes and imagined she was somewhere else, it was not so apparent how far removed she was from the wide-eyed girl that had arrived at Miss Mayfair's with an enormous smile on her face.

The day that she met Victor Frankenstein, she had been completely unprepared. Nobody had told her that a new doctor was coming to see her and they certainly hadn't told her how young and handsome he was going to be. All of the previous men had been far older than she was, with increasingly lengthy beards and an air of self-importance that she supposed came from being head of the household. Victor was about the same age as she was, clean shaven and still possessing the flicker of youth in his eyes. When he scolded her, it was in the same awkward, self-conscious manner that she stretched her legs in the communal shower. It made it all the more tempting to tease him, to take in his blushes and watch him attempt to muster the courage to scold her, watching how enticing he became when embarrassment or shock broke the genteel façade.

He was different to the other doctors and not just in the physical sense. He was still the only one to ever ask for her name. When the guards unfixed her chains from the wall and she was able to lie flat on her cell bed, she closed her eyes and brought the contours of his face to mind, attempting to memorise each one. He was the sort of doctor she had dreamed of having when she kissed goodbye to her Grandmother and climbed into the carriage to Miss Mayfair's, paying no mind to the men the Count had sent as escorts and she could not stop thinking about him. Her heart skipped a beat whenever she remembered their conversation or wondered how he would look without clothes. It had been so long since anyone interesting came into her cell, so long since anyone asked her a direct question that did not contain the word 'shame' that she found she wanted to spend every waking moment with Victor Frankenstein, not leaving until she knew him by heart.

She was as intrigued by the thought of what his favourite childhood memory might be as she was about what expression he made when he was at the height of physical pleasure. She wondered how intensely he burned when his walls came down and she smiled to herself at the thought of their next session. Perhaps she would tease him even more, until he broke completely and told her what a naughty girl she was. She could hardly wait for their next session and stared at the shadowy mass of her cell that she knew contained the door, wishing with all of her might that the guard would step through at that moment to take her to the communal shower, signalling that morning had arrived and Frankenstein would soon be coming.

_Perhaps, _she thought as her climax ebbed and she realised how slick her entire body had become, _a cold shower is not such a bad idea._

* * *

Count Von Stiltskin enjoyed a tea tray before bed; a strange hobby for a strange man. Everyone who worked at Miss Mayfair's had learned that it was prudent to accept his odd habits without question or risk becoming the subject of one of the innumerable stories concerning him. At nine o'clock sharp the strongest and meanest guard in the place, Kylemann, would escort patient 212 to various locations in the asylum, depending on whereabouts the Count happened to be.

Kylemann was large and brutish, though not stupid enough to ask why the Count seemed to take so much pleasure in tormenting a single patient on a daily basis when he had next to no concern for any of the others. Instead he would drop the woman off at the Count's study door at the dead of night and wander off to the kitchens for the hour or so until it was necessary to pick her up again and take her back to her cell. In that time, he would help himself to leftovers of whatever was left behind from dinner and flirt with the chamber maids, if any happened to be around.

The night that Ruby rested her hot head on the cold floor of her cell, Kylemann sank his teeth into a cold piece of gooseflesh and tried not to think too much about the fact that he was alone in the room. He did not like being alone, where there was no one to laugh at or pinch, much preferring to eavesdrop on other people's conversations and poke fun at their every word. The chambermaids grew increasingly convinced that the place was haunted and their individual stories, each meant to further convince and therefore scare one another, were usually his favourite things to laugh at. He loved how ridiculous they were, how extreme and exaggerated.

Once a girl came running into the kitchen and subsequently fell sobbing to the floor, dropping the basket of laundry and wailing as soon as anyone came closer.

"I saw her!" was all anyone could get out of her. "_SAW HER!_"

It took a visit to the medicine cupboard to calm her nerves and even then she still shook, glancing from the kitchen door to everyone around her.

"Whatever's the matter?" somebody asked her.

"Patient 201," she said, hugging her knees. "I _saw _her."

It took a great deal of persuasion to get the full story from her, but it went something like this: the girl was a chamber maid and responsible for tending to the cleanliness of the finer cells. For the past few weeks, although she had not mentioned it to any of the other maids, she had noticed a curious sort of singing coming from cell 201 that immediately ceased when she made a sound herself. She had tried to talk to the strange woman every day, with no success, only to lose her temper completely and unlock the door. There was no one inside that cell, had never been anyone inside it and all of a sudden the girl was paranoid that she had been chosen.

All buildings had their stories and Miss Mayfair's was no different. It was rumoured that a white lady stalked the halls at night, singing the same song over and over until she was seen. Some said she was a patient that had died in terrible circumstances; others claimed she had been killed by one. All versions agreed that things got very interesting if you saw her after dark.

"She's going to slice my throat!" the girl had sobbed, completely convinced of her own undoing. "It's what she does to anyone what sees her!"

Naturally the other women had reassured her on the matter, patted her on the head and told her that she hadn't actually _seen_ anything, so nobody was coming after her. Kylemann had laughed and carried on stuffing his face with food.

"You keep talking like this and soon they'll think yer as mad as the patients!"

When he was alone, though, it was easier to understand why the chambermaids got so frightened. The rooms seemed smaller, somehow, the air thinner. Every time he so much as exhaled, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and every sound seemed so much louder. When he sat down at the table, the groan of the wood against the floor was deafening. He tried not to think of the way that they had found the girl a few days later, hanging from the ceiling in cell 201 by the linens in her basket. Whenever he did think about it, he became almost certain that he could hear footsteps in the distance and breathing that was not his own.

They had all been in agreement, had they not, that the girl had probably panicked at the thought of the white lady coming for her and taken her own life before the ghost did?

"You only see the white lady if you've got something on your conscience," said one of the surviving chamber maids. "Just like what happened to Dr Haystead!"

Dr Haystead was one of the more legendary practitioners at Miss Mayfair's, whose name was often used by the medics as a throwback to better times at the asylum, but the serving staff and guards spoke of him in a rather different manner. To them he was the man with a taste for the scalpel, who took common uncurables from their wards and performed such horrific experiments on them that even to that very day the operating theatre was known colloquially as 'the red room'. He had a penchant for lobotomies, for he often claimed a 'lunatic's brain was a treasure chest of untapped potential', so it came as something of a surprise when he claimed he had seen a white woman outside of his bedroom door. Whatever explanation was pinned on the event quickly fell through when they found him in the red room, stabbed between the eyes with his own blade.

Kylemann shuddered and tried to think of more cheerful, pleasant things, ignorant of the figure standing in the doorway a little way behind him. She had on a patient's nightgown and her hair was tightly braided. She leaned into the doorway, stroking her hand against the stone, taking in every ripple and scrutinising Kylemann's every movement.

When he turned to look in her direction, the back of his neck burning, she was already gone.

* * *

The skies were black when the ship arrived in port. The waters were littered with the shadows of many other vessels and the young captain licked the salt from his lips as he scanned each one of them. He was not a suspicious man, but crows rested their feet on the contours of every rope and watched his ship approach with cold, glass eyes. He took a deep breath as he finally climbed down and rested his feet on solid ground, just to inhale sharply when he turned towards the alehouses and saw the old woman standing there.

She was shorter than he was and he shuddered at the sight of her eyelids, for they were sealed shut with many messy stitches, yet still she seemed to see him. He did not know how he had not seen her before, for she was standing so far out in the open with such wild hair that she bordered on conspicuous.

"Evening, love," he said, to disguise the way she unnerved him and she laughed.

"I am no love of yours, Killian Jones."

"I see my reputation precedes me," said Killian, wrapping his coat tightly around his body to avoid her blind gaze, trying to pretend that he could not hear the way the crows were getting restless and cawing at him from their safe place on the ropes.

"You are a man of the sea," said the hag. "It is in the best interests of one such as me to know of one such as you."

"You're not exactly my type, love."

Killian sat on a nearby barrel and pulled a bottle of rum out of his coat pocket, slotting it into the arc of the hook that had taken the place of his missing hand. The old woman, who did not seem at all insulted by his dismissal, appeared to watch him with interest despite her mangled eyes.

"My name is Pressina," she said. "And you will seek me out. I have seen it."

"I find it hard to believe you've seen _anything_ lately."

Killian had met plenty of wannabe soothsayers and rogue traders in his time, all of them using an array of tricks and illusions to persuade the gullible into handing over their coins. It was always the same with them, slipping his name into conversation when his ship was well known, hinting that they had something of importance to tell him to lure him in further. None of them had ever seen anything, of course. Their 'visions' usually accounted to little more than 'avoid the colour red on Wednesday'. Naturally, none of them had warned him to avoid port when it actually mattered.

"You will come looking for me, Killian Jones," said the hag. "I have something you want."

Killian pulled the stopper out of his bottle and took a swig, screwing up his face at the bitter taste.

"And what is that?"

"Milah."

Killian's heart skipped a beat in his chest and he glanced up from his rum, meaning to look the woman in the face, but she seemed to have disappeared. He climbed down from the barrel and glanced behind the various abandoned sacks and crates that lined the place, expecting to find her sitting there, massaging her hip, but there was nobody there. The docks were all but empty. Killian laughed and took a gulp of rum, running his fingers through his hair at the madness of it all.

"Milah is dead, you old fool!" He called out, disturbing the crows and laughing as one cawed at him, followed by another and then another, until they formed a deafening chorus. "Dead!"

* * *

Morning.

Jefferson watched as its light bled into the room, allowing him to see his surroundings properly for the first time in many hours. Unlike many of the other patients, Alice was permitted candles, though it was rare that Jefferson ever had to use one of them. Alice did not care if she could see during tea time, much preferring to dance in an imagined ballroom and ask how he liked her dress. After laying her head on his lap, she fell into a deep slumber and in the half-light he could make out her features- from the slope of her nose to the few stray strands of hair trailed across her face and lips, lifted by her breath whenever she exhaled.

"Oh, mad girl," he said, stroking his fingers through her hair and smiling when she stirred. "Can you believe what they've done to you?"

The first time he laid eyes on her, it was on the streets of London. His clothes were bedraggled and filthy and he barely had two coins to rub together, despite how much time he spent running from one job to another. During the day, he cleaned chimneys as he had since boyhood and when darkness fell he would patrol the seedier districts, selling substances of great interest –largely stolen – to anyone with enough spare cash. Diluted opium and fake laudanum kept him alive into his teens, so he felt little to no guilt in the dishonesty of the act, nor did he feel any shame in his surroundings. He had never known anything different, after all, and as the son of a whore he counted himself lucky that he had lived into infancy, let alone adolescence. He was a master of lies by the age of eight and trickery served as a useful second skin.

It all changed when a white rabbit crossed his path.

He had gone to one of the nicer areas of town, wondering if perhaps he might earn a few more coins and when the creature came sniffing at his feet, he lifted it into his arms and deliberated the best method of wringing its neck. The stew they made on petticoat lane rarely ever had meat in it, let alone something so fine as rabbit and he wondered about how it might taste.

"Oh, you found him!" somebody shouted and he turned to see who, just to see a girl in a bright white dress standing up in an open topped carriage across the street.

She was a Quality girl, with ghostly white skin, skirts that billowed in the morning breeze and such a happy, smiling face that he could barely take his eyes off her. She had a parasol in one hand and immediately passed it to one of her golden haired sisters before jumping to the ground and crossing the street, much to the chagrin of the driver.

"Miss Liddell," he called after her, though she paid no attention.

"Oh thank you so much," she said, smiling so widely that Jefferson allowed her to scoop the rabbit out of his arms and cuddle it into her chest. "We were starting to worry!"

The rabbit sniffed at her hair, so she stroked her fingers through its fur and Jefferson noticed the sooty stains where his own hands had touched it. Standing before such an elegant young woman in crisp, clean clothes, he felt remarkably ashamed.

"What is your name?" she asked, smiling so beautifully that he knew he could not tell her. She was Quality and he was nothing more than a filthy urchin.

"I..I…"

"Miss Liddell!" The driver caught up and folded his arms, glaring at Jefferson as if he had rolled in manure. "Are you alright?"

Miss Liddell's response was to laugh at his concern.

"Of course I am," she said. "This gentleman found Thompson! Edie can stop crying now."

And just like that Jefferson found his tongue.

"I'm not a gentleman," he protested, screwing up his face so that he did not have to see her. "I'm a chimney sweep from Petticoat Lane."

The driver did not seem in the slightest bit surprised by his outburst, but Miss Liddell seemed perplexed.

"Now, Miss Liddell, we are running quite late," said the driver, turning back towards the carriage, only for her to call him back.

"Gibbs! Won't you give me your coat?"

"Wh..my lady?"

He stared at her and she returned with such a perfect poker face that he had no choice but to comply, shrugging the thing off and watching with a bewildered expression on his face as she pushed the rabbit into his arms by way of exchange. Jefferson was unable to do anything but watch as she leaned in to wrap it around his own shoulders, so close that he could smell the soap she had used. He did not recognise the scent, though later he learned it was a very particular brand of rose scented soap, only available in London boutiques and Alice's personal favourite. He took in the sweet smell as she smoothed her fingers over the jacket sleeves, before standing back to examine him.

"Hmmm," she said, seemingly unhappy. "There's something missing…"

She turned to the driver, Gibbs, searching for inspiration and dragged the top hat straight from his head, leaving him standing there in a waistcoat with a rabbit in his arms and looking really quite ridiculous. The hat was too large for Jefferson and the rim almost immediately fell down over his brow, but the sight of him in his new clothes delighted Miss Liddell so much that anyone would have thought they looked perfect.

"Now you are a gentleman," she said. "And with such fine clothes, nobody shall ever be able to say otherwise."

He watched her climb back into the carriage and wave goodbye, wondering if it was a white rabbit or fate that had crossed his path. Either way, he ran to catch up, the sleeves of his new coat flapping around his shoulders and his new hat falling over his eyes.

"Miss," he called. "Miss! Please tell me your name."

He had to put a name to the feeling she had bestowed on him. Love, hope and beauty had to have a name and he stared into the smiling face of the girl in the white dress, watching as the wind whipped through her hair and she replied: 'Alice'.

That day she was so beautiful and Jefferson stared at her as if seeing an angel through the windows of purgatory. Gently, so gently that he barely even noticed it happen, he realised that he would follow his snow white queen to the end of the world, until his feet were blistered and bruised and his stomach ached with hunger.

* * *

Victor Frankenstein did not attend breakfast, a fact Dr. Hopper noted with a degree of concern. When the other doctors steadily began to leave the table, he scooped up a few leftover rashers of bacon and a couple of slices of toast and made his way to the other man's room, wondering if Melissa had read any further in his absence. He did so look forward to asking her.

Victor did not respond to his knocks and Archie felt rather conspicuous standing outside of his door with a greasy napkin in his hand, so reached for the door handle.

"I'm coming in now, Dr. Frankenstein," he said, pushing the door open and stepping inside.

The young man had not given him permission to enter, though he did not regret his decision. Only the previous day, the room had been borderline immaculate and practically untouched, but since then almost everything had changed. Patient 405's papers were scattered around the place, out of order and covering almost every inch of carpet, while Dr. Frankenstein sat at his writing desk in the same clothes he had been wearing the day before. His hair was rumpled where he had combed his fingers through it and he appeared to be in the process of scripting a rather extensive letter, the pages of which were intermixed with the pages of patient 405's case notes.

"Doctor?" said Archie, reaching to pat the younger man on the shoulder and immediately thinking better of it. "Doctor, are you alright?"

Victor Frankenstein rested his pencil down on the paper and stared at him as if he was looking at a ghost. It was apparent from his vacant stare that he had not slept at all.

"Dr. Hopper," he said, rubbing his eyes. "What brings you here?"

"You missed breakfast," said Archie, offering him the smuggled goods from the breakfast hall. "What on earth happened here last night?"

"I started writing a letter to my father," said Victor through a mouthful of toast crumbs and butter. "About my experiences here and of my progress. Tell me, is the Count in his study?"

Archie took in his pale countenance, the bags under his eyes and the way that he had scribbled out several passages in his letter over and over again. He chose not to ask why it was that even though Victor had told him the letter was for his father, it was clearly addressed to somebody by the name of Elizabeth. He did, however, have to wonder about his sudden interest in the Count's activities.

"I do believe so," he said, just to wish he had never said a word, for Victor climbed out of his chair like a man possessed and was out of the door before he had so much as pulled on a jacket. Archie wanted to sit with Melissa and read and, despite her absence, he begged for her forgiveness before following Victor Frankenstein down the hall.

"Are you quite alright?"

He had seen many medical men come and go from Miss Mayfair's over the years and the process was always the same. They became obsessed with their work, took to their rooms without a care for mingling with other doctors or even their personal health. For it to happen after just one day was certainly a cause for concern.

"It is kind of you to ask, Dr. Hopper," he asked, turning and smiling, but never once changing his gait, leaving Archie to huff and puff after him. "Though I will be much better once I have seen the Count."

"And why is that?" Archie pressed, aware that he probably seemed quite nosy, but he was too concerned to bother about such things.

"It is a matter of great import," said Victor. "I must change patients."

"But...this all seems very hasty...after just one day..." Archie protested, trying to keep up with his longer strides. "I know t-that Miss Ruby is hardly a simple patient, but in a f-f-few weeks perhaps-"

The Count had not been satisfied by his usual tea trick at breakfast and so had had his men march the poor girl into his study for what he called 'another chance', but anyone who had lived in the school for long enough knew that it was anything but. All things considered, Archie had not expected there to be anyone outside of his study with the possible exception of that brute of a guard Kylemann, who beat and manhandled patients at the Count's request. It came as something of a surprise when Archie turned the corner and found Jefferson standing there, of all people.

Of all of the doctors in Miss Mayfair's, Jefferson was the man he knew the least about. He had arrived at the same time as patient 306 and guarded her room like a bulldog ever since. It was an unspoken fact that many other doctors would have loved to have tested out 306 or made notes of her condition, but Jefferson always refused them with a tone of utmost disrespect.

When Jefferson spotted the pair approaching, he examined Victor closely and Archie realised that the pair had not met.

"Ah, good morning Dr. Jefferson!" he greeted. "Might I introduce you to Dr. Frankenstein from Ingolstadt?"

Unlike Victor, Jefferson had changed into a luxurious navy jacket with large brass buttons and golden brocade, but he had deep bags under his eyes too and Archie wondered what Alice had been up to that night.

"Charmed," said Jefferson, in the sort of tone that implied he didn't really care either way. As he did so, Archie became rather more aware of the muffled sobs coming from inside the study and shuddered.

"What brings you here?" he asked, hoping to drown out the sound. "Were you hoping to talk with the Count too?"

Jefferson sighed and shook his head.

"I wanted to talk to him. I didn't realise he had Milah in there."

"Poor thing," said Archie and Victor stared at the study door with a confused expression across his face.

"If the Count has a patient to see to...surely that takes precedence over our problems," he said and immediately Jefferson laughed at his naivety, leaving Victor to glance back at Archie with a look of utter confusion.

"Milah is n-not the Count's patient," he said, choosing his words very carefully. "She is his wife."

As if response to that revelation, Milah sobbed a little louder.

"What did you want to speak to the Count about, J-Jefferson?"

Jefferson sighed and leaned the weight of his body against the wall.

"Not that it's anyone's business," he said, with so much emphasis on the 'anyone' that Archie knew he really meant 'your', "but I wanted to try a new technique with Alice. Namely, I wanted a different doctor to take over from me for a while."

Archie could barely believe his ears. Jefferson, who had travelled to the kitchens at two in the morning because his patient wanted hot milk? Jefferson, who had appeared at the breakfast table once with flowers in his hair, smelling of powdered lilacs. Jefferson, who often laughed at his patient's antics in the same way one laughed at a best friend. Something about it just wasn't right and his thoughts on the matter must have been apparent by the look on his face.

"Alice would benefit from having a little variation," said Jefferson. "And I will have the final say over who delivers her treatments."

"How fortuitous," piped up Victor and Archie immediately wished he had locked him up in his bedroom. "I too came to ask for a change in patient."

"I do not feel that is a good idea," Archie protested. "The C-Count has never allowed a swap in patients before and, e-even if he did, patient 405 for patient 306 is a far f-from equal trade!"

"Then we simply won't tell him," said Jefferson, breaking out into that easy smile that made the Curable girls swoon. "Though I suppose you are right about it not being entirely fair. It's quite a shame that we do not have a third party to balance things out."

And just like that, Archie realised that all eyes were on him.

* * *

Ruby spent more time than she was willing to admit flexing her muscles in the communal shower, turning and stretching as far as her chains would allow so that she ended up as cleansed as possible. She did not like the smell of the showers, that disinfected smell that lingered on her skin for many hours, but as she listened to passing footsteps and watched the door to her cell, she found herself leaning over and sniffing that clean smell by way of comfort. She was not sure what she was going to say to him, though after much deliberation settled on 'sorry'.

When her cell door finally squeaked open, she crawled into the closest she could get to a dignified sitting position and took a deep breath, only to exhale at the sight of the man who stepped inside. That man was dressed in a navy coat, with golden brocade and smelled so strongly of rose soap that she wrinkled up her nose.

"Who are you?" she asked, as he doffed his hat by way of greeting.

"Patient 405," he said. "I'm Jefferson and I'm going to be your new doctor."

Ruby recognised the name. Sometimes people whispered it when they passed her cell.

"Why aren't you with patient 306?"

He _couldn't_ be her new doctor, Ruby told herself. He was assigned to patient 306 and the Count wouldn't just reassign him. Unless, and she bit her lip in the hopes that it wasn't true, she had gained a reputation to rival even that of the illustrious patient 306 and Victor did not want to treat her.

"Dr. Frankenstein and I have been talking," said Jefferson, "and we agreed it was in our best interests to swap patients for the time being. I am to treat you, while he and Dr. Hopper will treat Alice between them."

Ruby wondered if Victor's decision to treat 306 was not because she was equally as bad, but because she was

"Worse," she said aloud without meaning to, her eyes filling with tears. She told herself it was the overwhelming scent of the disinfectant on her skin and not the memory of the handsome doctor asking for her name as no one else ever had. It absolutely wasn't the imagined meetings she had dared to think up as she showered herself clean, where he curved his fingertip over letters to teach her their sounds with the same gentle touch that he would later touch her body. She had dared to dream and embraced the opportunity far too enthusiastically.

She remembered the dream she had had only that morning, her vision all but impaired.

"_You've been terribly bad. I don't think you deserve this."_

She barely even heard as Jefferson said he understood the news had distressed her immensely and would return later on, she was too busy leaning over her shackles and sobbing.

"I deserve it," she protested, her voice little more than a sob. "I do, I do!"


End file.
